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LECTURE 



ON 



EPIDEMIC DISEASES GENERALLY, 



AND PARTICULARLY 



THE SPASMODIC CHOLERA, 

DELIVERED IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, MARCH, 1832, AND 

REPEATED JUNE, 1832, AND IN ALBANY, JULY 4, 1832, 

AND IN NEW YORK, JWNE, 1833. 

WITH 

AN APPENDIX, 

CONTAINING 

, SEVERAL TESTIMONIALS, AND A REVIEW OF BEAUMONT 's 
EXPERIMENTS ON THE GASTRIC JUICE. 

New Edition, revised and enlarged. 



BY SYLVESTER GRAHAM, 

PUBLIC LECTURER ON THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN LIFE. 



BOSTON : 



PUBLISHED BY DAVID CAMBELL, 

No. 9, Washington Street. 

1838. 



no* 






AN EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL, AND 
OTHER HARD TERMS. 



Abnormal, not according to the healthy laws position. . . 

and operations of the system ; diseased. Idiopathic,the original disease ; original cnar- 
Alimentary canal, includes the stomach and acter of the disease. 

intestines. Lacteals, small vessels that convey the chyle 

Arterial, belonging to the arteries. to the blood vessels. 

Acute disease, comes on suddenly, with in- Lymphatics, small vessels that convey the 

creased action, inflammation, &.c. lymph, &c. to the blood vessels. 

Adscititio-us, added, supplemental, additional. Medulla oblongata, top of the spinal marrow. 
Chyme, the digested food of the stomach : Morbid, diseased — morbific, causing disease. 

chymification, making chyme. Mucous mcmbrane,\he membrane lining the 

Chyle, the nutritious part of the food which alimentary canal, lungs, &c. 

forms the blood ; chylification, making chyle. Malaria, bad, or poisonous air, pestilential 
Capi llary, very small, hair-sized vessel. air, &c. 

Calorific, having the power to produce heat; Messentary, the membrane to which the in- 

calorifi cation, causing heat. testines are attached. 

Chronic disease, of slow advances and long A "ormal, according to the healthy laws and 

standing. ^operations of the system. 

Collapse, falling together ; ceasing to act. Ossification, bony formation. 
Calcidi, hard stone-like substances formed in Plexus, a number of nervous cords, woven 

the liver, kidneys, bladder, &c. together. 

Cholera morbus, a diseased flow of bile or gall Pneumo-zastric, belonging to the lungs and 
Congestion, an over fulness of the blood ves- stomach. 

sels, &o. Preternatural, above what is natural, or ordi- 

Diaphragm, the membrane that divides the nary and healthy. 

body into chest and abdomen, or belly. _ Physiology, the science of the properties and 
Diabetes, disease of the kidneys ; excessive functions of animals and plants. 

secretion. Pathology, the doctrine of diseases, their 

Depurating, cleansing, purifying. , causes, symptoms, &c. 

Endemic disease, a local disease peculiar to a Psycology, the doctrine of the nature and 

country or place. ; properties of the soul. 

Epidemic disease, general, extensive, com- Physiological pathology, disease connected 

mon to many. with disordered function, &c. 

Epigastric, round about the stomach. Pulmonary, belonging to the lungs. 

Enteritis, inflammation of the intestines. Scirrus, or Scij-rhus, hardened indurated 
Function, office of the organ ; digestion is the gland. 

function of the stomach. Serous, thin, watery, like whey. 

Filamentary, thread-like, smallest form of Tissue, a particular arrangement of nervous 

the structure. or muscular fibres in the organs. 

Ganglion, a bulbous enlargement, or knot of Therapeutics, that part of medicine which re- 
nervous substance. .. spects the application of remedies, &c. 
Gastric, belonging to the stomach — gastritis Venous blood, the blood of the veins. 

inflammation of the stomach. Vascular, consisting of vessels, as tbe^arte- 

Gastro -intestinal, belonging to the stomach ries, veins, &c. 

and intestines. Vasculo-nervous, consisting of vessels and 

Inosculate, to unite, to run into one. nerves. 

Intercostal, between the ribs. Viscera, the internal organs, such aB heart, 

Idiosyncrasy, peculiar temperament, predis- stomach, intestines, lungs, liver, &c. 



Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1833, by Sylvester Graham, in the 
Clerk's Office of the Southern District or .New York. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



I iting to the public a reprint of the following treatise on Epi- 
diseases the editor is actuated by several considerations, to which 
he re? r-ectfully invokes the attention of the reader. In the first place, 
the former edition is entirely exhausted. Not a single copy is to be 
had, notwithstanding frequent inquiry is made for the work. Jnthe sec- 
ond place, it is believed that the intrinsic value of the work, as a scien- 
tific and practical treatise, is such as not only to warrant, but actually to 
demand the republication of it. For it is valuable not merely as a treat- 
ise on epidemic diseases, but as a condensed system of physiological and 
pathological science ; abounding in the most important practical precepts 
and rules for the guidance of persons afflicted with every form of dis- 
ease, as well as of those who are in the enjoyment of good health, and 
desire to preserve it. In the third place, the republication of this work, 
at this time, affords a very desirable opportunity to present the strongest 
evidence of that cautious scrutiny and scientific accuracy with which Mr. 
Graham has pursued all his investigations and arrived at all his conclu- 
sions. And this is believed to be important, not merely as being lauda- 
tory to the man, but as justifying that confidence which has been placed 
in his doctrines by those who have listened to his public instructions, and 
as warranting the fullest confidence of the public in him as a teacher of 
the Science of Human Life. 

The first edition of this work was published some months before Dr. 
Beaumont's « € Experiments and Observations On the Gastric Juice and 
the Physiology of Digestion," were given to the world, and contained 
many views which at that time were considered not only as contrary to 
the well established doctrines of the schools, but as wholly at variance 
with the universal experience and common sense of mankind ; yet the 
reader of the following pages, by comparing Mr. Graham's treatise with 
the review of Dr. Beaumont's work in the Appendix will be astonished to 
find that Dr, Beaumont has so fully demonstrated, by actual experiment 
on the human stomach, the truth of what Mr. Graham had before pub- 
lished as the result of his scientific investigations. Indeed, with the ex- 
ception of the question of flesh eating, which Dr. Beaumont does not at- 
tempt to decide, there is scarcely a doctrine advanced by Mr. Graham 
in this treatise which is not confirmed by Dr. Beaumont. 

The following treatise, as will be perceived by a reference to Mr. Gra- 
ham's advertisement to the first edition, was prepared and first publicly 
delivered in New York, in March, 1832 ; full three months before the 
cholera appeared in this country; a«d again delivered in the same city, 
in June following, and published in the summer of 1833. 

At the time it was prepared, therefore, Mr. Graham had seen nothing of 
the epidemic cholera, and had, as he informs us, no other knowledge of 
it than such as was derived from the accounts of its symptoms and rava- 
ges in Asia and Europe — published in the newspapers and explained by 
his own physiological and pathological views. He had never seen nor 
heard of a post mortem examination of a cholera subject, and the modes 
of practice adopted abroad were as various and contradictory as they 
well could be. He was, therefore, under the necessity of forming his 
own theory of the nature and cause of the disease, according to what he 
considered the true principles of physiological and pathological science. 



IV 

The conclusions to which he arrived in regard to the nature — the re- 
mote and immediate causes, and the prevention and remedy of the dis- 
ease, were almost totally different from the opinions held by foreign phy- 
sicians and entertained by the faculty in this country. Yet it is now well 
known that the experiment in the city of New York in the summer of 
1832, powerfully confirmed the truth of Mr. Graham's views, in regard 
to the best means of preventing and remedying the cholera, and so far 
as any just inference can be drawn from the history of the disease through- 
out our country, it is fully corroborative of the results of the experiment 
in New York. 

Guided solely by the physiological and pathological views which gov- 
erned his reasonings in relation to the epidemic cholera, Mr. Graham 
was led to give it as his opinion that the disease which followed the eat- 
ing of the quails, by the Jews in the wilderness, was a form of cholera. 
[See Lecture, page 17, fourth paragraph.] Several months after the 
publication of the first edition of this work Dr. DeKay's " Sketches of 
Turkey " issued from the New York press and from that work the fol- 
lowing extract is taken. 

" Traces of the cholera may be found among the Jews, three thou- 
sand years ago. It is stated in the Old Testament that the Lord, after 
promising the Jews abundance, (Num. xi. 20,) declares that they shall 
be fed upon this food until it comes out at their nostrils ; and until, as 
the Septuagint expresses it, they have the cholera (^oxsva.) which in 
fact afterwards appeared. In our English version it is translated loath- 
someness, but we are informed by an intelligent Hebrew that the origi- 
nal Hebrew word ('zorah') means nausea, which is one of the most 
constant symptoms of cholera." 

Whether Dr. DeKay when he wrote this, had seen Mr. Graham'sLec- 
ture on the Cholera, which had been on sale in New York some months 
before his work was published, we do not know ; but at any rate the 
coincidence is worthy of remark. 

It has already been stated that Mr. Graham had never seen nor heard 
of sl post mortem examination of a cholera subject when he wrote the 
following treatise, and therefore, what he said concerning the seat, pa- 
thological physiology, and the morbid anatomy of Cholera (see Lecture, 
pp. 23, 24, 25 and 35,) was wholly predicated on what, according to his 
views, was clearly indicated by the general symptoms of the disease. 

The 32d number of the " American Journal of the Medical Sciences," 
published in Philadelphia, August, 1835, (more than three years after the 
following treatise was first delivered, and two years after it was publish- 
ed) contains an article " On the Anatomical Characters of Asiatic Chol- 
era, with Remarks on the Structure of the Mucous Coat of the Alimen- 
tary Canal. By W. E. Horner, M. D., Professor of Anatomy in the 
University of Pennsylvania," from which the following extracts are 
taken. 

" In admitting the central point of cholera to be the abdomen, there 
are three leading theories which profess to explain the character of the 
lesion. " One of them is the nervous theory : the second, that of pas- 
sive vascular congestion, and the third, that of acute inflammation." 

Having made these statements, Dr. Horner briefly presents his reasons 
for rejecting the first and second of these theories, and then proceeds to 
advance his facts and reasons in favor of the third, or that of acute in- 
flammation. 

In reply to the reasonings of Magendie, in support of the theory of 



congestion, or "suspension of the circulation, arising principally from 
a debilitated contraction of the ventricles of the heart." Dr. Horner re- 
marks, " The general capillaries unquestionably execute languidly in 
cholera, their office of forwarding the blood, and we may hence natural- 
ly infer that they are affected with atony ; but does it not appear more 
probable that the latter is a sympathetic condition produced by the ex- 
treme pathological actions of the mucous membrane of the alimentary 
canal ; the sympathies being conveyed, either by the great sympathetic 
nerve, or by that more refined innervation of parts, of which anatomy 
knows so little but which unquestionably exists." 
■ .." Dr. DeGravier, the chief French Physician at Pondicherry, saw the 
inflammation of the stomach and intestines so well marked that he con- 
sidered it to give rise to all the other symptoms by means of irritation, and 
went so far as to call the disease gastro-enteritis. Mr. Corbyn details 
such appearances of inflammation in the stomach and bowels as should 
leave no doubt of the fact." 

" For my own part, considering the rapid secretion from the alimentary 
canal of serum and of fibrin, and knowing that this act itself is calculat- 
ed, as in pleuritis, to relieve the inflammatory congestion of the vessels, I 
have but little difficulty in viewing cholera as a decided inflammation 
from the beginning. 

M The precise state of the venous system of the digestive canal is 
among all the traits of cholera, that which will most fully account for its 
destructiveness to human life. The minute anatomy of this system has 
already been explained, and we now resume the general fact that the 
mucous membrane is formed by an intertexture of these veins, resem- 
bling a net, or more exactly, a plate of metal pierced with holes ; these 
holes being the follicles whose aggregate number is forty-six millions at 
least, and probably much more. 

" It is to be borne in mind that it is the whole of this vaseular and 
follicular structure, endowed with vital actions the most important to life, 
and presenting in the aggregate an area of about thirteen square feet — the 
size of a small breakfast table, whose morbid derangements constitute 
the essential features of cholera. 

" The most undeniable fact of cholera, is a rapid fluxion of the 
blood to the whole digestive mucous membrane, with a diminishing of its 
own volume by large losses at the part, as the immense serous discharges 
prove ; but here is an action extending over an area of at least two thou- 
sand square inches — I say the size of a small breakfast-table. 

" Under such overwhelming circumstances of disease, can we wonder 
if the exterior symptoms of inflammation do not exist, that the inflamma- 
tion instead of acting as a stimulus, as in common diseases, so as to dif- 
fuse the blood more rapidly towards the periphery of the body, increasing 
the heat of the skin and the volume of the arteries in the limbs, &c. 
should, on the contrary, prostrate every action of the system, except on 
the surface where itself prevails ? 

" The majority of the cases of cholera probably suffer extreme vio- 
lence only upon particular sections of the digestive mucous membrane. 
Some have it in the stomach chiefly ; others in the colon also, — others 
may have it chiefly in the small intestines. But in all cases, some de* 
gree of irritation extends along the whole canal ; the resistance of an in- 
dividual to the disease will therefore depend mainly upon the quantity of 
surface vehemently attacked." 

Let any intelligent person compare these extracts from the American 
Journal, w\\\i pag§s 23, 24, 25, and 35, of the following Lecture, 



Vi 

and it will seem almost impossible to him that the writer of the one should 
not have been acquainted with the views of the author of the other. And 
yet Mr. Graham's Lecture was written and published years before Dr. 
Horner's article was, but, probably, never seen nor heard of by him. 
We see one man, therefore, reasoning purely from the symptoms of the 
living subject, according to his own physiological and pathological views, 
and another man reasoning from the demonstrations of morbid anatomy 
in the dead subject, and both arriving at the same conclusions, and with- 
out any knowledge of each other. 

Compare also Note A, page 82, with the fourth paragraph of the 43d 
page of the Lecture. 

Now then, the honest question is, did Mr. Graham arrive at his con- 
clusions by mere conjecture, and guessing, and without any accurate 
knowledge of physiological and pathological science, or did he arrive at 
them by sound philosophical and scientific investigation and induction ? 
The former cannot for a moment be supposed, and if the latter be ad- 
mitted then is it most evident that he is no tyro in the science which he 
professes to teach. 

The man who, breaking away from the trammels of education and the 
shackles of popular opinion, 13 able to stand alone in the strength of his 
own philosophy, and with the clear vision of scientific truth, perceive 
and announce those deep principles, which others cannot discern and 
will not believe till severe experience and sensible demonstration compel 
them to, may indeed — nay, will be certain to be reviled by multitudes 
whose confidence and respect he deserves. Yet they who are willing to 
open their eyes to the light of truth, and are capable of appreciating the 
merits of such a teacher, will feel their confidence in him increased ra- 
ther than diminished by the reviling of a blinded and misguided world. 

It is no small tribute of respect to the author of the following treatise, 
however, that one of the most eminent and distinguished professional 
gentlemen of this country, procured a copy of it as soon as it was pub- 
lished and sent it to his son, who was completing his professional studies 
in Paris; and another professional gentleman, no less eminent and dis- 
tinguished, has declared that, " it ought to be printed in large type and 
fastened to the wall of every parlor, and posted over every kitchen fire- 
place, in every community." 

It is believed, therefore, that in republishing this valuable treatise, a 
decided good is done to soeiety, and it is hoped that every one into 
whose hands it may fall, will not only read it with attention but care-* 
fully study it. 

BosTox 3 May, 18S8, 

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

The following Lecture on the Cholera, was first delivere at the 
close of my course of Lectures on the Science of Human Life, in 
the Baptist Meeting-house, in Mulberry Street, New York, in March, 
1832, in the presence of more than two thousand people. The effect 
produced was very considerable, and the Lecture became the topic of 
conversation and remark somewhat extensively in the city. 

Soon after this, an editorial article appeared in the Courier and Enquirer 
under the head of 4 ' Facts, not Theory, in regard to Asiatic Cholera." 
In thi3 article it was attempted to be shown, that " the Cholera originated 
and raged most fatally among the Hindoos who subsisted on rice, and 



Vil 

were the most temperate people in the world ; M and therefore, it wag 
better for the people of this country to eat atleast their usual proportion 
of flesh and other things to which they were accustomed, than to abstain 
from flesh entirely, with a view to avoid or mitigate the Cholera. I im- 
mediately replied to this article, in the most respectful manner, but the 
Editor did not find it convenient to publish my reply. 

Not long after this article appeared in the Courier and Enquirer, a let- 
ter o considerable length, from Dr. De Kay, appeared in the Evening 
Post, in which it was stated that the et occasional use of stimuli in the 
form of generous wine or brandy, or gin and water, was found decidedly 
beneficial during the prevalence of the Cholera at Constantinople — that 
this epidemic broke out and raged with great violence among the Jews at 
Smyrna, during one of their religious fasts , and had proved peculiarly 
fatal among that class of people generally, in Asia and Europe, whose 
diet was particularly meagre and abstemious." 

Whatever might have been the design- of the writers of these articles, 
the citizens of New York universally received them as specially intended 
to bear against the dietetic doctrines which I had taught in my Lecture 
on the Cholera, and immediately, throughout the city, the clamor was 
raised, " If the Cholera comes here, all the Grahamites will certainly 
die with it."— I am sorry to say, that too many physicians, who were 
ignorant of what I had really taught, gave countenance to this hue and cry. 

When the news reached New York that the Cholera had appeared in 
Canada, the panic in the city exceeded all bounds. I had closed my 
Lectures for the season, and according to arrangements, made several 
months before, was about to proceed with my family to Rhode Island, 
where I had engaged to be as early as the fourth of July ; but such wa3 
now the panic in the city, and so much was I urged to repeat my Lec- 
ture ori the Cholera, that I consented to defer my departure, and com- 
ply with the wishes of my friends. In announcing the Lecture through 
the newspapers, I particularly invited the Corporation, and the medical 
gentlemen of the city, to attend. I also sent a special invitation to the 
Board of Aldermen, by whom it was formally accepted, and put a quan- 
tity of tickets into the hands of Dr. Lee, who engaged to see that at 
least a considerable portion of the physicians were furnished. 

In the mean time the clamor and excitement were increasing, and I 
was respectably informed that some physicians at least, were visiting 
families in which they practised, and advising them to subsist principally 
on animal food, and always to take a little brandy or wine with their wa- 
ter. On the evening of the 21st of June I repeated my Lecture in the 
Chatham Street Chapel, without any other alteration than the addition 
of such important facts and matter as circumstances presented. That 
is, the doctrine of the causes, nature, prevention, and remedy, of the 
Cholera, as it now stands in the text of the following Lecture, is pre- 
cisely the same that 1 delivered in March preceding. The additional 
matter is principally in reference to the articles which appeared in the 
Courier and Enquirer and the Evening Post. 

I again began to prepare to leave the city for Rhode Island, when I re- 
ceived a letter from Dr. Beck of Albany, as the Secretary of the City 
Temperance Society, requesting me to come to that city, and deliver a 
lecture, on the 4th of July. It was impossible for me to comply with 
this request without putting myself and family, and some of my friends 
in the city, to very great inconvenience, and disappointing my friends in 
Rhode Island ; nevertheless it seemed to be my duty to go to Albany, 
and I concluded to go. - 



via 

On the 2d of July, 9 cases of the Cholera were reported in New 
York : on the 3d I went to Albany: on the evening of the 4th, deliv- 
ered my Lecture on the Cholera there, and on the 5th returned to New 
York, and found that Mrs. G. had engaged our passage to Newport 
for the 6th. I found also that the cry was up, in which even some re- 
spectable physicians had a voice, that I had fled from the city in such 
a panic, on account of the eholera, lhat I had left my family behind. 
I endeavored to persuade my family to proceed to Rhode Island 
without me, but not being able to succeed, I left the city for Newport 
on the 6th of July ; and then the cry became louder and more gene- 
ral, that Graham had fled from the city in a panic, and all his follow- 
ers were dead or dying with the Cholera. This. cry was kept up 
through the whole season of sickness, in order to destroy all the con- 
fidence of the people in my doctrines, and drive them to flesh-eating, 
and brandy and wine-drinking. But not every one was shaken. Some 
were steadfast, and they fully realized all the benefits I had promised. 
[See the Appendix.] Immediately after my arrival in Rhode Island, 
X sat down and prepared the following lecture for the press, just as the 
text is now published, with an intention of sending it back to the city 
for publication ; but all communication being cut off, I was disappoint- 
ed, and the manuscript remained on hand. 

Some days after I had delivered my lecture the second time, the two 
Clinical Lectures on the nature, treatment, and symptoms of Spasmodic 
Cholera, by Broussais, appeared in an English dress in New York. I 
read these Lectures, and was not a little surprised to find a very striking 
resemblance, in many respects, between them and mine — especially as I 
had read no other medical treatise on the cholera whatever — my own lec- 
ture being written from the information I had gathered, as to facts, from 
the public papers, and from my own physiological and pathological views. 
And whatever may be thought of my opinion as to the epidemic cause of 
the cholera throughout the world, — let it be remembered that even if 
this opinion were shown to be incorrect, all my other reasoning would be 
none the less true. 

On the evenings of June 7th and 13tb, 1833, I repeated this Lecture 
again at Clinton Hall : and now I present it to the public in print for sev- 
eral reasons. In the first place, the doctrines of this Lecture have been 
so entirely confirmed by the whole history of the cholera in this country 
up to the present moment, that I feel it the more important that it should 
be published as extensively as possible. In the second place, as it is 
not exclusively applicable to the epidemic cholera, but summarily em- 
braces all epidemic, chronic, and acute diseases, so it will at all times 
and in all places be useful instruction to the people. In the third place, 
those who have heard the Lecture have generally requested that it should 
be published. Finally, the mode of treatment pointed out in the Lecture 
for diarrhoea is equally applicable to all kinds of bowel-complaints, at all 
times, and therefore should the epidemic cholera never again appear in 
this country, this Lecture will be perhaps equally useful. 

August 20, 1833. S. Graham. 



LECTURE 



Almost every writer on physiology, who has made any 
pretensions. to originality, has attempted to define or explain 
vvhat'is. signified by the word life : hut if a want of correct 
knowledge, and of. a sound judgment, has not led me to an 
erroneous 'opinion on the subject, all have- failed, through an 
endeavor to find, in the principles and properties, common to 
inorganic matter, the elementary causes of organic life. 

While, however, so much obscurity, if not* impenetrable, 
mystery, hangs over the nature of organic life, the vital con- 
duct, or the means, and manner, by which life maintains it- 
self in Hs organic domain, against the power of counteract- 
ing agents, and influences,, is "better understood : and the 
continued, antagonistic conflict between 'vitality, in accom- 
plishing its functions, and the more primitive affinities of in-v 
organic chemistry, was beautifully expressed by our late dis- 
tinguished Doctor Rush, of Philadelphia, when he said that 
" Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce 
death." . In producing each and, all of its peculiar and legit- 
' imate 4 results, vitality necessarily overcomes the laws, and 
counteracts the affinities of inorganic matter; and exerts 
molecular affinities, of a. totally distinct and opposite charac- 
ter, — which result in aggregations and structures, entirely 
different from those of inorganic matter : — and hence it is 
true, that all the inorganic affinities in Nature, are adverse to 
organic structure, and life : and hence also," it is true, that 
life maintains its power, and performs its functions, in oppo- 
sition to the ordinary laws of inorganic matter, and, within 
its own appropriate domain, resists the operations of those 
laws, while its power is paramount. 

Thus, the vegetable seed, which, being deprived of life, 

would soon yield to the action of the more primitive laws of 

matter, and by the process of what we call decay, pass into 

other forms : — yet while its vitality remains, it resists those 

1 



laws, and preserves its form and structure, and vital proper- 
ties and powers so perfectly, that even after a lapse of centu- 
ries, if placed in genial circumstances, it will vegetate, like a 
last year's seed, and develope its appropriate form of plant 
or tree. 

By the same power, the hybernating animals, lying in a 
torpid state, without nourishment, resist dissolution and de- 
cay for months ; and in some instances, there is reason to 
believe, even for many years, and again awake to the active 
manifestations of life, and the powers of locomotion. And 
by the same controlling power, the living body preserves its 
own peculiar temperature, and with little variation, in arctic 
winters and tropic summers; and converts foreign matter to 
its own substance ; disposing of the various materials of 
which itself consists, with the utmost integrity, regularity 
and precision, according to its wants. 

All the interesting effects of organic life are embraced in 
the economy of the grand vital function of Nutrition. 

The food of various kinds, which we receive into the 
stomach for the sustenance of the body, if the vitality of the 
stomach were destroyed, would naturally take on a chemical 
action, and soon run into fermentation and putrefaction, and 
pass entirely into other forms of inorganic matter : and this 
is ever the more natural and inherent tendency of the food 
received into the living stomach. Vitality alone, therefore, 
overcomes this tendency, and counteracts the inorganic affin- 
ities, and transforms the nutritious properties of the several 
kinds of food, into a nearly homogeneous substance, of a 
very different character from what it was when first swal- 
lowed. 

Destroy vitality here, and the process of digestion would 
instantly cease, and the chyme would yield to inorganic affin- 
ities. But vitality, " maintaining its victory over the causes 
which induce death,'' - carries on the living function, and still 
farther digests the contents of the alimentary canal, and 
elaborates the chyle, and carefully conveys it through living, 
and in some measure, vivifying tubes, to the blood vessels ; 
and through the office of the heart, ushers it into the capil- 
laiies of the lungs, and by the vital functions of these or- 
gans, completes the transformation into living arterial blood: 
— and this, possessed of all the properties necessary for the 
nutrition of the body, is, by the vital power and functions of 
the appropriate organs, distributed into every part of the 
beautifully complicated system. — where, according to the 
wants of the several parts and substances of the body, por- 



tionsof the blood are detained, and, by a process of purely 
vital chemistry, transformed into bone, cartilage, muscle, 
nerve, &,c, while at the same time, particles of each and 
all of these substances, after having fulfilled their time and 
purpose in the organic structure, are, by the same vital pow- 
er, continually undergoing a change back into a limpid fluid, 
which is conveyed by appropriate vessels, and mingled with 
the returning blood, that, from every part of the system comes 
back to the centre, through the veins, dark, and full of im- 
purities, and destitute of those properties which are necessa- 
ry to nourish the body, and sustain the functions of life. 

By the vital powers and functions of the several organs — 
especially the skin, lungs, and kidneys, the impurities of the 
venous blood are separated out, and cast off from the organ- 
ic system, and the blood is completely purified and renovat- 
ed, and fitted again for all the purposes of arterial circula- 
tion. 

Thus, from the very commencement of digestion in the 
stomach, to the last office of the skin and other organs, in 
throwing off the worn-out and offensive matter of the system, 
vitality exerts its efficient and controlling power,~and main- 
tains its victory over the causes which induce death : — for 
if the vital power should be overcome in any stage of this 
general function, the process would be immediately arrested, 
and dissolution would ensue. Even the arterial blood, which 
is itself a highly vital fluid, depends on the vitality of the liv- 
ing vase in which it flows, for the continuance of its life, and 
for its vital results : — for if a portion of the blood be confined 
in a section of the living and healthy artery, the vitality of 
the blood is preserved, so long as the artery remains in a liv- 
ing and healthy state ; but if the vitality of the artery be de- 
stroyed, the life of the blood contained in it, is soon lost. 

In the same manner, vitality exerts its conservative and 
controlling influence, over every substance within* its domin- 
ion — even over the effete or worn-out matter of the body, re- 
straining it from taking on the action of inorganic affinities, 
until it is conducted beyond the threshold of organic function 
and vital welfare. 

In order to a better understanding of the economy of the 
vital power, it is necessary to ascertain the tissue in which 
vitality more particularly resides, or with which it is more 
immediately connected. 

In the language of physiologists, man has an animal life, 
and a vegetative or organic life. His animal life comprises 
his organs and powers of sensation, voluntary motion and 



volition: — arid his vegetative or organic Fife comprises his or- 
gans and powers concerned in the grand function of nutri- 
tion : such as appertain to digestion, respiration, circulation, 
secretion, absorption, excretion, &lg\ 

Corresponding with this division, man has' two classes, or 
what, indeed, may almost be called two systems of nerves. 
The nerves which appertain to animal life, are connected 
with the brain and spinal marrow, and are distributed princi- 
pally to the muscles of voluntary motion, and to the sensitive 
surface of the body, or external skin. The nerves which ap- 
pertain to organic life, arid which, in regard to the subject 
before us, are altogether the most important to us, are be- 
lieved to originate with the organs themselves, in a kind of 
rudimentary "brain, or bulbous enlargement of nervous sub- 
stance, Which, is .called a gauglion or knot, of which there is 
a large number in the different parts of the body. 

As the several organs with which they are connected, ad- 
vance in their formation, these ganglions increase in size, 
and throw out cords or branches, some of which go to con- 
nect them directly with each other, and form a general union, 
or system of the whole ; while other branches, from different 
ganglions, interweave and inosculate, and form plexuses, 
from which, again, n-umerous branches are given off, to sup- 
ply the stomach, and heart and lungs, and liver and kidneys, 
and all the other organs concerned in the general function of 
nutrition. 

Besides the more deeply seated ganglions connected with 
the principal viscera, there are two series of them, which 
range along the anterior sides of the back bone, connected 
together, in a chain, on each side, by nervous-cords which 
extend from the lower extremity of the spine io the base of 
the cranium, and enter by small branches through the carotid 
canal with the artery, and form connections with branches 
of the fifth and sixth pairs of nerves of the brain. These 
two series of what are called peripheral ganglions, with their 
connecting cords, are denominated the sympathetic nerves, 
because they are believed to form the most intimate union of 
sympathy between all the viscera concerned in organic life. 

Besides the cords which connect these peripheral ganglia 
ons with each other, each ganglion gives off a short thick 
cord outwardly, to join a cord coming from the spine, and 
also receives a branch frorh each cord coming fram the spine 
— and each ganglion gives off one or more branches, whieh 
run inwardly to interlace and inosculate with each other, and 
with branches from the more deeply seated ganglions, fofm- 



9 

ing the plexuses from which the several organs are supplied 
as just described. From three, four, five, and sometimes 
more, of the ganglions within the chest, belonging to the 
sympathetic nerve on each side of the spine, large cords are 
given off, and run inward and downward, and finally uniting 
into one cord on each side and passing through the diaphragm, 
form at its base, on the anterior sides of the spine, two large 
ganglions, called the semilunar ganglions. These ganglions 
give off numerous large branches, which, together with seve- 
ral from other parts, and some from within the cranium, form 
a very large central plexus, in front of the spine, which con- 
stitutes a kind of common centre of action and sympathy, to 
the whole system of organic nerves. This is called the so- 
lar plexus. From it branches are given off in every direction, 
to enter into other plexuses, and to supply organs. Some of 
its largest cords go to the stomach, which lies just in front of 
it, and are distributed over that organ, interweaving and 
uniting with numerous branches of the pneumo-gastric nerve, 
from the grand centre of perception and action within the 
cranium, with which, also, the stomach is largely supplied. 

From the solar plexus, also, numerous branches issue, 
which invest the arterial trunks with a kind of nervous lace- 
work, and proceed with them through all their distributions 
and ramifications, even to their capillary terminations, in the 
glandulous structures, and the vaseulo-nervous texture which 
forms the skin, and mucous membrane of the alimentary ca- 
nal, and lungs, and the membranes of other surfaces. 

Thus all the nerves of organic life are intimately woven 
together into a common web of sympathy, and harmony of 
action — pervading all the organs concerned in the general 
function of nutrition ; bringing them into general and special 
relations, and supplying them with that peculiar vital power 
by which each is enabled to perform its particular office. 

The stomach, the intestines, the lacteals, the lungs, the 
heart, the arteries, the capillaries, the veins, the lymphatics, 
the liver, the kidneys, the skin, &c. &c, depend upon the 
nerves of organic life for that vital power by which are per- 
formed the functions of chymification and chylification, and 
absorption, and respiration, and circulation, and organiza- 
tion, and calorification, and secretion, and excretion, &c. 
&c. It is by the power^derived from or through these nerves 
that the food is transformed into chyme, and the chyme into 
chyle, and the chyle into blood, — and the blood preserved in 
its fluidity and vitality, and distributed throughout the whole 
system, and portions of it transformed into bone and cartil- 
1* 



10 

age, and muscle and nerve, and every other substance in the 
body; and all the various secretions are performed, and the 
skin, and lungs, and kidneys, and other depurating organs, 
separate out and throw off the impurities of the venous blood. 
Hence the vital power which resists, counteracts, and sub- 
dues, chemical affinities and noxious agents — the vital power 
which maintains its victory over the causes which induce 
death, resides in or acts through, the nerves of organic life, 
in the performance of its great conservative functions,— for 
organic life may continue when animal life is suspended, and 
even for a short time after animal life is extinct— but animal 
life cannot continue an instant after organic life is destroyed. 

lathe early stages of the organic developement, each of 
the move deeply seated ganglions, is supposed to constitute a 
kind of independent centre of action,— presiding in. its own 
appropriate sphere : but as the system advances in growth, to 
that state in which it will be necessary for it to perform inde- 
pendently, its own general function, of nutrition, the several 
ganglions become^ as we have seen, intimately connected to- 
gether, and by their peculiar arrangements, form a common 
centre of sympathy and action, for the nerves of organic life, 
in the semilunar ganglions and solar plexus. 

Again :— by means of the connections formed betweeu the 
ganglions- of the spmpathetiCj and the intercostal nerves of 
the spinal marrow, and more particularly by means of the 
connection formed between the top of the medulla oblongata, 
or head of the spinal marrow within the cranium, and the 
semilunar ganglions and solar plexus, by thepneumo-gastric 
nerve, some of whose branches run directly.to this last Gen- 
tre> and more of them interweave and unite with branches 
from the solar plexus in the stomach,- — a common point of 
union, and centre of perception and <)f action, is established 
in the top of the medulla oblongata, for all the normal ope- 
rations of the united system of animal and organic life. 

Here, then, we see this beautifully complicated system of 
organs, each constituted for its particular office, and all nice- 
ly adjusted for One grand, vital result; — so woven together in 
one general web of nervous texture, that a community of life 
and energy constitute their vitality and functional power — 
each, so immediately and powerfully sympathizing with all, 
and all with each, that no one organ can be diseased, — no 
one function can be disordered, without affecting in a great- 
er or less degree, the condition and conduct of the whole. 
We see also, that the mucous membrane which lines the 
whole length of the alimentary canal, from the lips of the 



11 

mouth to the inferior extremity, is formed, principally, of the 
filamentary ends of nerves of organic life, with capillary 
terminations of blood-vessels, absorbents, &,c, so that the 
whole extended surface is one sheet of sympathy, with which 
every part of the system reciprocates its influences, and di- 
rectly sympathizes in all conditions. 

But the inner surface of the stomach is more peculiarly 
the centre of sympathy to the whole organic system ; sup- 
plied as it so largely is, with nerves from the solar ple^s and 
from several other plexuses, and from the medulla oblongata, 
it is brought into direct and special relation with the brain, 
heart, lungs, liver, skin, and indeed with all the organs of 
the system: so that every affection and every disturbance of 
the stomach, influences, in. a greater or less degree, every 
organ and every function in the body. 

Although the stomach is, by no means, the source of ner- 
vous energy to the system, yet such is its nervous supply, 
and such a-re its constitutional relations, that it may with 
propriety be considered the common index of the whole sys- 
tem : for the vital power of the system to resist the influence 
of noxious agents, and. to accomplish the functions of life, 
always corresponds with the condition of the stomach. 

When this organ is in good health, and properly supplied 
with healthful food, and the function of digestion is vigo- 
rously and healthfully going on, then it is that all the vital 
functions of organic life, are most vigorously and perfectly 
performed, — then it is, that man has the greatest physical 
power for achievement and endurance ; then, has life the 
most complete victory over the causes which induce death; 
then has man the greatest power to resist the influence of 
cold and heat, wet and dry, malaria, or the subtile breath of 
pestilence, or whatever infectious or malignant causes may 
exist around him, and act upon him. And on the contrary, 
when the stomach is debilitated and disordered,— ^when its 
natural and healthy susceptibilities have given place to pre- 
ternatural and diseased excitability, and irritability, and 
when its vital energies are scarcely sufficient to perform, even 
imperfectly, the function of digestion,- — then every other or- 
gan in the system sympathizes, and every other function lan- 
guishes : — respiration is less full and perfect, less oxygen of 
the air is inhaled and appropriated by the lungs, the blood is 
not so completely purified and renovated, circulation is less 
vigorous and copious, assimilation and organization are more 
feebly carried on, the secretions are either diminished or 
morbidly excessive : — the skin which should throw off, in 



12 

the form of insensible perspiration, more than half of the 
impurities of the blood, becomes enfeebled, and less perfect- 
ly performs its depurating functions; — and the vital power of 
the system, to regulate its own temperature, and resist the in- 
fluence of noxious agents, is always diminished : — and in 
this condition of the system it is, that the vital functions are 
always most easily disturbed by foreign agents, and the body 
is most liable to injury from the action of morbific causes. 
In th# condition, man is less able to endufe fatigue, and U> 
resist the influence of heat and cold, wet and dry, unhealthy 
atmospheres, and infectious and pestilential causes. 

Thus we see that the healthful performance of the vital 
functions, and the power of the living body to resist the in- 
fluence of noxious agents, depend on the health and integrity 
of the nerves of organic life. 

These nerves, in a perfectly healthy state, are endowed 
with a nice and peculiar susceptibility, which renders them 
capable of being acted on by their own natural and appro- 
priate stimuli ; and the most perfect integrity of the nerves 
themselves, and of the functions resulting from their energy, 
depends on the unimpaired healthfulness of this suscepti- 
bility. 

In their healthy state, the nerves of organic life have no 
sensibility ; and hence they are also called the nerves of veg- 
etative life ; because the functions of the organs depending 
on them for nervous energy, are, in their healthy state, per- 
formed without the consciousness of the animal. But these 
nerves are capable of being irritated into a state of excessive 
irritability and diseased sensibility, which is utterly incom- 
patible with their healthy and peculiar susceptibility; and 
consequently, incompatible with the healthy performance of 
the functions of those organs which depend on them for ner- 
vous energy. 

Unhappily for man, almost every circumstance and influ- 
ence in civic life, tend to the developement of preternatural 
irritability and diseased sensibility in these nerves. All un- 
due excitements and exercises of the mind, and of the pas- 
sions ; all excessive indulgences of the appetites; improper 
qualities and quantities of food; the debilitating habits of 
indolence'and effeminacy; the various customs and circum- 
stances of artificial life, such as appertain to habitation, cloth- 
ing, locomotion, the preparation of food, &,c. &,c. ; and 
worst of all, the habitual use of artificial stimulants, such as 
the heating and irritating condiments of the table, and more 
particularly the various narcotic and alcoholic substances; — 



13 

all act upon the stomach to disturb its functions, and to im- 
pair the health of its nervous and muscular tissues, and, 
consequently, tend to debilitate that organ ; and, by continu- 
ed or repeated irritation, to develope and establish in it a dis- 
eased excitability and irritability, resulting often in chronic 
or acute inflammation, and painful sensibility and disorgani- 
zation. 

But this is not all; the stomach cannot suffer alone; be- 
ing, 'as it were, a kind of retina or sensorium to the nerves 
of organic life, the whoje -system of those nerves, and 
consequently all the organs supplied by them, sympathize 
powerfully in all its conditions and affections, partake of all 
its irritations, and suffer a consequent debility. The brain, 
the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the skin, and oth- 
er organs, participate in all its irritations, and are- affected by 
all its conditions. The necessary consequence is, that the 
natural and healthy susceptibility of the nerves is impaired, 
general debility of functional power ensues, tending always 
to diseased irritability, inflammation, painful sensibility, and, 
finally, disorganization arid death. 

The constitutional- susceptibilities of our nature, when 
properly and healthfully acted on, always afford pleasure 
from the excitement or stimulation ; and hence there is in hu- 
man nature, a constitutional love of stimulation; and this 
love or desire always tends to excess of indulgence— and the 
more so, as indulgence becomes excessive, and is followed 
by exhaustion of the vital energy, and abatement of vital 
power; and this result always obtains to a. greater degree^ 
and more permanently, from the action of the artificial than 
of the natural- stimuli. 

From this constitutional principle springs the almost uni- 
versal propensity, in the human race, to indulge in excessive 
stimulation :— and hence, the substances and means of arti- 
ficial stimulation and intoxication, have been among the ear- 
liest discoveries and inventions of social life in almost all the 
different tribes and nations of men since the creation of the 
human species. And, unfortunately, as men have emerged 
from the savage or barbarous state, and advanced in those 
refinements and luxuries of civil life, which rendered them 
more susceptible of the pernicious effects of artificial stimu- 
lants, and .left them less vital power to react against them, 
they have also greatly multiplied the forms of those stimu- 
lants, and increased the deleteriousness of their qualities. 

The effects of this combination of causes, on the human 
race, have been just such as every sound and sagacious phys- 



14 

iologist might have distinctly and confidently predicted from 
a priori reasoning. 

Continued irritation and disturbed functions have necessa- 
rily resulted in general debility of the nervous system, and 
reduction of vital power. The stomach, heart, lungs, liver, 
kidneys, skin, and other organs concerned in the grand func- 
tion of nutrition, have all participated in the general wither- 
ing, and each particular function has been enfeebled, and the 
vital power of the body to resist the noxious agents that sur- 
round and act upon it, has been proportion ably diminished. 

In this manner, chronic diseases, corresponding in charac- 
ter with the peculiarities of circumstances, of causes, and of 
individual idiosyncracies, or predispositions, have been, gen- 
erally, by slow and imperceptible degrees, developed in the 
human system; and to a very great extent, rendered constitu- 
tional, — at least so far as to involve decided, and often very 
strong predispositions. In the same manner, by the more 
sudden and powerful action of causes, acute diseases are in- 
duced, which are much more rapid and violent in their pro- 
gress, and sudden in their results. 

Thus, by various causes, and particularly, by the habitual 
use of artificial stimuli, the vital energies of the human race, 
from generation to generation, have been exceedingly impair- 
ed, and the vital power of resistance to the causes which in- 
duce disease and death, reduced. I say, " particularly, the 
habitual use of artificial stimuli," because it is a notable fact, 
worthy of profound consideration, that all those tribes which 
have been found on islands and elsewhere, whose diet was 
plain, coarse and simple, and who were entirely free from the 
use of aritficial stimulants, have also been almost as entirely 
free from all kinds of disease ; while, on the other hand, all 
those tribes whose circumstances were, in all other respects 
equal, but who habitually, and often freely used artificial stim- 
ulants, have been afflicted with various forms of chronic and 
acute disease ; and frequently visited with extensive and ter- 
ribly malignant epidemics. 

Many of the practices which prevail in society, are such 
as would destroy life at once, if they were not entered into 
by very small degrees of increase. By these means we grad- 
ually destroy those peculiar susceptibilities of the healthful 
living tissues, which in an unimpaired state immediately de- 
tect the presence of deleterious substances, and summon all 
the instinctive energies of the system to throw them off, when 
the action of the poison is sufficiently powerful to endanger 
the vital welfare of the body. 



15 

In this manner the system is made to yield, and yield before 
the encroachments and depredations of those practices which 
are continually violating the laws of life, and diminishing the 
power of vital resistance. 

This important doctrine cannot, perhaps, be better illus- 
trated, than by adducing the effects of that most loathsome of 
all substances, tobacco, on the living body. This plant is 
one of the most powerful narcotic poisons in the vegetable 
kingdom. Should a man, entirely unaccustomed to the use 
of it, take into his mouth, at once, such a cud as is ordinari- 
ly used by the confirmed tobacco-eater, and in the same man- 
ner, chew it and retain it there, the natural susceptibilities of 
his nerves would give the alarm instantly. The distressing 
sympathy would soon extend to the stomach and brain, and 
thence throughout the whole system. All the energy of vital 
resistance would be summoned up, and the most loathsome 
sickness, and violent, continued and convulsive efforts, by 
vomiting and otherwise, would be instinctively made to re- 
ject the destructive poison. If the vital powers were suffi- 
cient to sustain the conflict till the offending cause was en- 
tirely removed, the individual would survive : if not, the most 
distressing exhaustion, and collapse, and death would ensue. 
In such a case, the manifestations of poison would be such as 
to render it impossible for any one to doubt the deleterious 
properties of tobacco. But why then does not tobacco, at 
all times and in all cases, produce such manifestations of its 
poisonous character 1 The reason is not because the tobacco 
in any degree changes its character or power, but because a 
change is effected in the condition of the nerves on which it 
acts. 

However small the quantity of tobacco used at first, the 
unimpaired susceptibilities of the nerves detect its poisonous 
qualities, and give an alarm equal to the danger, producing 
vertigo, nausea, and perhaps vomiting. But if the quantity 
taken into the mouth at first is so small, as not seriously and 
. immediately to endanger the vitality of the system, the in- 
stinctive alarm given is comparatively limited and feeble, and 
the efforts to throw it off correspond, in power and continu- 
ance, with the degree of excitement. Yet the evil ends not 
here. All the organs of the system have been more or less 
irritated, and their functions more or less disturbed, — and 
still worse, the peculiar susceptibilities of the nerves, which 
at first enabled them so promptly to detect the poisonous 
qualities of the tobacco, have been seriously impaired ; so 
that ordinarily, if, after the irritation produced by the first 



16 

dose is entirely removed, another dose of equal quantity 
and power be taken, the nerves have less ability to detect its 
poisonous qualities, and consequently, less alarm will be given 
and less effort will be made to throw it off. By continuing 
the use of tobacco, and by slowly increasing its quantity, the 
peculiar susceptibilities of the nerves, which enabled them to 
detect its poisonous qualities, are more and more impaired,— 
till, finally, they not only cease entirely to give an alarm to 
the system, but on account of the injury thus done thenr, be- 
come so dependent on the stimulating* properties of the to- 
bacco, to raise them from the consequent prostration, that 
they even demand the continued, use of the destructive poi- 
son, and with an 'imperativeness and pertinacity equal to the 
force of antipathies overcome in forming the demand. This 
constitutes the foundation and the power of the habit. But 
let it not be supposed that the tobacco is in itself less poison- 
ous, nor that its effects on the system are really less perni- 
cious ! True it does not produce so great an excitement of 
the nerves on ^vhich it immediately acts, nor cause so great . 
an irritation of the organs generally; but this is owing to 
that impaired condition of the living tissues, which causes 
them to suffer equal or even greater injury from the less irri- 
tation ; and which renders them just so much the less able to 
resist. the destructive action of other noxious agents, as they 
have been impaired by the tobacco. And this is true of the 
effects of all narcotic and alcoholic, and indeed, all other ar- 
tificial stimulants, on the living tissues of the human body. 

It is an indubitable truth, that the action of all artificial 
siimulants on the living tissues-, is always, and necessarily, 
in the nature of things, at the expense of the vital energies 
of the tissues, and always impairs those natural and peculiar 
susceptibilities, which constitutionally adapt the tissues to 
their natural and appropriate stimuli. 

The necessary consequence of all this is, that throughout 
the human race, the vital power of the body to perform its 
organic functions, and maintain its victory over the causes 
which induce death, is reduced very far below the capabili- 
ties of the original constitution of man; yes, very far below 
the present capabilities of the human constitution. 

Indeed, almost the entire human family make it a matter 
of continual practical experiment, to ascertain how near they 
can run to the line of death, and still maintain life ! Who 
but the suffering invalid — (and seldom even he) seriously in- 
quires, " What, and how much shall I eat and drink, and in 
what manner shall I live in order to sustain my body in its 



17 

healthiest and best condition ? " Does not almost every hu- 
man being, rather, at least in practice, demand— How far 
can I indulge, and live? Is it surprising then, that we find 
the human race, from generation to generation, leaning so far 
towards death, that their vital centre of gravity almost falls 
without the base of vital control 1 And poising thus, is it a 
marvel that even the moth and the caterpillar should often 
throw them from their balance, and send them headlong to 
destruction ? 

It cannot, therefore, be any cause of wonder, that chronic 
and acute diseases, in all their dreadful forms and modes of 
destruction, should.be multiplied throughout the human fam- 
ily, and sweep away the great majority of the species, even in 
the dawn of life! Nor is it wonderful that some local, or 
general cause, not powerful in itself, such as the exhalations 
of decaying vegetable or animal matter, the character and 
quality of food, a sudden change in the temperature, or hu- 
midity, or dryness of the atmosphere— or something else, 
equally simple and obvious in its nature and existence, should, 
in consequence of the peculiar condition of the human sys- 
tem, superinduce an endemic or epidemic disease, whose fa- 
tality corresponds with the reduced state of the vital power 
of resistance in man, the influence of moral causes co-ope- 
rating, and the propriety or impropriety of medical theory 
and treatment. 

In this manner, bilious intermittent, and remittent fevers, 
dysentery, typhus fever, yellow fever, scarlet fever, influenza, 
cholera^ morbus, &>c. &,c, obtain and become more or less 
general, according to circumstances and the nature of excit- 
ing causes. 

Cholera morbus has afflicted the human race, ever s'nce 
the abuses of the vital organs have been such as to induce 
that disease in the human body. The history of it comes to 
us from the days of Hippocrates, who flourished about four 
hundred years before Christ, — if indeed, we do not find a 
much earlier record of it in the writings of Moses. For 
there is reason to believe that the terrible disease which 
broke out so suddenly and raged so fatally among the Jews 
in the wilderness, at the time they ate so freely of the flesh 
of quails, was no other than cholera morbus. 

This disease is not in its nature at all times, if indeed it is 
ever necessarily of an epidemic character. In the time of 
Hippocrates, it was more commonly peculiar to the young 
and robust, who, by their occasional excesses, or improper 
diet, caused such an irritation of the stomach and intestines, 
2 



18 

and sympathetically of the liver, as to induce an increased, 
or, as it was called, a morbid or diseased flow of the bile into 
the alimentary canal, which produced violent vomiting and 
purging, in order to throw off the offending or irritating 
cause. 

The natural organic susceptibilities of the young and 
healthy are comparatively little impaired, and consequently 
they are more readily and powerfully disturbed by the pres- 
ence of offending causes. When, therefore, any substance, 
decidedly offensive to the system, either from its nature, 
quantity, condition, or untimeliness, is received into the ali- 
mentary canal, the natural susceptibilities of which are 
healthy and vigorous, an instinctive alarm is given, which 
soon calls up the appropriate efforts of the system to expel 
the offending substance. This must be done by vomiting 
and purging, and to produce these instinctively an increased 
quantity of bile is introduced into the stomach and intes- 
tines ; and this is effected by peculiar irritations of the liver, 
and these irritations depend on certain conditions of the stom- 
ach and intestines. 

In this view of the subject, which is purely physiological, 
cholera morbus seems to be the constitutional means, b 
which the system instinctively expels offensive and disturb- 
ing substances from the alimentary canal, and under such 
circumstances, the disorder, though violent, is far from being 
alarming, unless the disturbing cause is intrinsically and fa- 
tally poisonous; — for with proper treatment, such as the free 
administration of warm water, to cleanse and soithe the 
stomach and intestines, — and often without any thing more 
than the unassisted efforts of instinct itself, the disturbing 
cause is soon removed, and the disorder ceases. 

But when a long train of abuses has greatly impaired, and 
perhaps almost or entirely destroyed the healthful suscepti- 
bilities of the nervous tissue of the alimentary canal, and ex- 
ceedingly diminished the vital energies of the system, if an 
irritation is induced which brings on cholera morbus, almost 
every thing concurs to increase the danger of a fatal result. 
For a morbid irritation once fully induced, in such a system, 
will not subside even when the first exciting cause is removed ; 
but feeds and increases itself by its own action. The same 
morbid irritability throughout the whole system causes the 
functions of all the organs to be more easily disturbed, and 
even arrested by the irritation of the stomach and intestines; 
while on the other hand, the system has less power to sustain 



19 

itself under these irritations, and to maintain its victory over 
the causes which induce death. 

From such a condition of the human system it is, that the 
fatality of cholera morbus generally arises : — and such or 
nearly such, is the habitual condition of the bodies of a great 
portion of the human family, in consequence of the almost 
incessant irritations that are kept up in the alimentary canal, 
by various causes in civic life, but more especially, by the 
use of artificial stimulants, and particularly the narcotic and 
alcoholic of every form. 

As I have already observed, cholera morbus is a disease 
which has been known for many centuries ; and in certain 
portions of the earth, it has very extensively and almost un- 
interruptedly prevailed from the earliest periods of their his- 
tory : and not unfrequently has it become epidemic and swept 
off immense numbers of the human family. 

The epidemic disease which is at present the cause of so 
much alarm throughout the world, and which has extended 
over so great a portion of the earth, and committed ^uch 
dreadful ravages in its course, cutting off many millions of 
the human race, in the short period of a few years, though 
popularly called Cholera Morbus, Cholera Asphyxia, Spas- 
modic Cholera, &>c, yet in its present form and character, 
the term cholera does not seem to be applied to it with strict 
propriety, as it is more remarkable for the entire absence, 
than for the presence of bile in the alimentary canal. I am 
inclined to believe, however, that this disease was originally, 
a proper cholera morbus; and that from various causes ope- 
rating through a considerable period of time, it has degene- 
rated into its present character. And, in fact, it seems now 
in no important point to differ from that disease, excepting 
that, instead of a morbid flow of bile into the alimentary ca- 
nal, there is a morbid flow or secretion of serous fluid, which 
is even more acrid and irritating to the mucous membrane 
than the bile itself, and consequently causes more violent 
symptoms. Hence I suspect that the present popular name 
of the disease was originally correct. 

The history of this terrible epidemic is too well known to 
render it necessary or expedient that I should now enter into 
its details. Its march of desolation is rapid and fearful ! — 
We already contemplate its advances with dismay, and feel 
that its terrors are staring us in the face! 

It concerns us now, to ascertain, if possible, its nature, its 
causes, its remedy and its prevention. 

Iu regard to the nature of this disease there has been 



20 

much speculation, and a great diversity of opinion. It is 
truly astonishing and even humbling to see how much the hu- 
man mind is prone to throw obscurity and fearful mystery 
over objects which excite the sympathies and passions, and 
which are in reality far from being mysterious. It is possible 
that I am in an error on this subject ; but if I am not, there is 
much more plainness and simplicity about it, than is gene- 
rally supposed. 

We have already seen how the organic system, by its vital 
functions digests its food, and separates out, and more fully 
• digests the chyle, and conveys it through the heart and pul- 
monary arteries into the lungs, where the process of diges- 
tion is completed, and the nutrimental fluid received from 
the alimentary canal, is converted into living arterial blood. 
This blood, prepared for all the wants of the body, is return- 
ed to the heart through the pulmonary veins, and thence 
through the arterial trunks and branches, and capillary ex- 
tremities, is diffused over the whole system, and portions of 
it are detained and converted into bone, cartilage, muscle, 
nerve, and every other substance belonging to the body, 
while the remaining portion of it finds its way, through ex- 
ceedingly minute vessels, into the veins, in which it returns 
to the heart ; while at the same time, all the different struc- 
tures of the body, which are constantly receiving nourish- 
ment from the arterial blood, are also ascontiually giving off 
their worn-out particles, which, by a process of vital, chemis- 
try, are resolved into a limpid fluid, and this is taken up by a 
set of capillary vessels, called the lymphatics, and emptied 
into the veins and mingled with the returning blood. Thus, 
both by the absence of properties which are separated from 
the arterial blood, to supply the various wants of the system, 
and by the effete and refuse matter returned by the absorb- 
ents into the veins, the blood is deprived of its stimulating 
and nourishing qualities, and is brought back to the heart 
through the large venous trunks, dark, and full of impurities 
and wholly unfit for the uses of the system. If the blood, 
in this condition, should be thrown into the arterial circula- 
tion, it would immediately suspend sensation, voluntary mo- 
tion and consciousness : and very soon, the nerves of organ- 
ic life, wanting their natural and appropriate stimulus, would 
cease to afford their vital energy to the organs,— -all the vital 
functions would be arrested, and life would be destroyed. . 

To prevent this state of things, and to restore the blood 
to a condition suited to the wants of the system, the' skin, 
the lungs, the kidneys, alid perhaps some other organs, aro 



21 

continually, and should be vigorously employed in separating 
out and throwing off the impurities of the blood : and the 
lungs and skin also digest a portion of the atmosphere and 
incorporate it with the blood to increase its vital and health- 
fully stimulating properties. In this work of depuration, the 
skin ordinarily throws off, in the form of insensible perspi- 
ration, more of the impurities of the blood than any other or- 
gan of the system. Indeed it is estimated, that more than half 
of all that is appropriated as nourishment to the system, ul- 
timately passes off through the skin : and some eminent 
physiologists have asserted that more than half of all that is 
received into the stomach, passes from the body in this way. 

The power of these organs to perform their functions, as 
we have seen, is purely a vital power, depending on the state 
of the nerves of organic life: and always corresponding in 
energy and vigor with the general condition of the digestive 
apparatus, and especially the stomach. When, therefore, the 
stomach is disordered and debilitated, and its function is 
feebly performed, the functions of the skin and lungs are 
less vigorous and complete, — the blood is not so thoroughly 
purified, nor is so large a portion of the atmosphere digested 
and incorporated with it, to increase its living energy and 
stimulating power. The whole organic system suffers in 
consequence ; the heart is less vigorous in its action, circula- 
tion is enfeebled, and the whole capillary system suffers a 
diminution of its vital power, on which all the processes of 
vital chemistry depend : and the body is consequently less 
able to endure cold and heat, and is more liable to be injur- 
ed by all the sudden changes of temperature, diet, conduct, 
and condition ; and by the action of noxious and pestilential 
causes. 

Let me again remind you, however, that I do not intend to 
teach, that the stomach is the organ which generates and 
disseminates the vital energy of the nerves of organic life ; 
nor that it is the centre of action to this system of nerves. 

In a. healthy and normal state of the human system, each 
organ has, probably, to a certain extent, its own more imme- 
diate and special centre of action ; and these special cen- 
tres are associated by a more common centre of perception 
and action of organic life in the semilunar ganglions and 
solar plexus : while the top of the medulla oblongata, or 
head of the spinal marrow, is believed to constitute the gen- 
eral centre of animal perception and of voluntary motion and 
action to the whole united system of animal and organic life. 

The proper performance of the functions of life and the 
2* 



22 

welfare of each and every part of the system, depend upon 
the integrity of the nerves, in supplying the necessary vital 
energy ; and this again, depends on their healthy state, and 
the due subordination of every part, to its lawful centre of 
action. 

By inducing a diseased condition and inflammation of any 
part, a new and abnormal centre of action may be establish- 
ed, equal in the power and extent of its influence, to the im- 
portance of the part, and the degree of its morbid irritation ; 
which will not only derange the function of the part itself, 
but also to a greater or less extent, those of the other parts ; 
and sometimes, of the whole system;- — causing an undue de- 
termination of the fluids to itself, and resulting in morbid 
secretion, imperfect assimilation, chronic : inflammation and 
disorganization or change of structure, by softening or indu- 
ration, producing schirrhus, ossification, calculi, ulcers^ can- 
cers and dissolution : — or, mounting into a high state of acute 
inflammation, and in a more violent and rapid career, bring- 
ing on gangrene, or general convulsions, collapse and death. 

Some of the functions of the body are, however, to a cer- 
tain extent reciprocal ; so that the suppression of the one 
leads to an increase, and often to a morbid excess of the oth- 
er. Such is the case with the functions of the skin and kid- 
neys; and also of the skin and lungs; and perhaps some 
ethers in a small measure. 

Every person of any observation, must have noticed that 
copious perspiration, is ordinarily followed by diminished 
function of the kidneys : and that a suppression of insensi- 
ble perspiration by chilly, damp weather, is generally attend- 
ed with an increased function of the kidneys: and these ex- 
cesses always correspond with the debility of the organs. 
But the welfare of the particular parts, as well as of the 
whole system, requires that each organ should uniformly and 
vigorously perform the full measure of its own duty, because 
frequent excesses arising from an undue determination of 
fluids to any one part, lead to debility of the part, and often 
. result in impaired function, imperfect assimilation, local dis- 
ease, and general injury and death. In this manner, sud- 
den suppressions of the functions of the skin, often lead to 
diabetes or pulmonary consumption, by causing undue deter- 
minations to the kidneys and lungs, and inducing inflamma- 
tion in one or the other of those organs, according as hered- 
itary or self-originated predisposition renders the one or the 
other more liable to become diseased by such irritations. 

Besides these more natural reciprocities of function, it 



23 

sometimes happens that a very diseased and violent reciproc- 
ity is attempted by the system. As for instance ; — when the 
function of the liver becomes deranged, the system some- 
times attempts to force out the excess of bilious matter 
through the excretory organs of the skin ; and hence we have 
the manifestations of the disease, called jaundice : — and 
sometimes.the liver.is irritated and inflamed, and the character 
of the bile greatly affected by the excessive presence of those 
qualities in the blood, which should have been carried off 
through other organs. And again; the system is liable to 
such a determination of the fluids to the mucous surface of 
the alimentary canal as excessively to irritate and inflame that 
very important membrane, and thus disturb and derange all 
the functions of life, and lead to the most painful and often 
the most fatal consequences. But this last disorder seldom 
if ever, obtains unless irritation is first induced in the ali- 
mentary canal by the direct action of moral or physical 
causes on its nervous tissue. 

Now, with these explanations before us, can the nature of 
the fearful epidemic which is committing such ravages in the 
world, be regarded as in any degree a mystery? 

Innumerable as are the irritating and debilitating causes 
which are continually disturbing and impairing the organic 
functions, and diminishing the vital power of resistance, can 
it be a matter either of mystery or surprise that a highly mor- 
bid irritability of the stomach and intestines, should obtain 
in a very large portion of the human race ? — All the organs 
must participate in the affections and conditions of the stom- 
ach. — The quality and quantity of the secretions are neces- 
sarily affected ; and every thing in the system is strongly pre- 
disposed to disease of any and every kind. An adscititious 
cause, Which would scarcely affect, in any degree, a healthy 
system, may now be sufficient to induce the most violent and 
fatal disorder. In such a state of things, sudden atmospheric 
changes, or the presence of noxious gasses or effluvia — to- 
gether with exposures, — fatigue, — exhaustion, — improper 
kinds, quantities or conditions of food, — free use of heating 
and irritating condiments — fear — anger — venereal excess — 
and above all, excesses in alcoholic and narcotic substances, 
acting directly upon a morbidly susceptible and irritable 
stomach, and through it on the whole system, the utmost dis- 
order must necessarily ensue. 

If the gastro-intestinal irritation be not of the highest or- 
der, the system endeavors to relieve itself from the irritating 
cause, by a mild form of diarrhoea, which, if properly treated, 



24 

answers the instinctive purposes, and soon gives place to 
healthy action, and no further inconvenience follows: — but 
if the diarrhcea be neglected, and permitted to run on — and 
if irritating articles of diet be received into the alimentary 
canal, — and more especially, if heating and irritating astrin- 
gents, tonics, stimulants, Sec. Sec, such as port wine, braudy, 
or alcohol in any form, or opium in any form, camphor, pep- 
permint, ginger, mustard, pepper, &c. &c. ba taken for the 
purpose of checking the diarrhcea, it is within the range of pos- 
sibility that the experiment maj succeed, so far, at least, as to 
arrest, for a while, the discharges, and in some extremely rare 
instances the system may recover: but almost inevitably the 
disorder will be aggravated, and a highly morbid, gastric, or 
gastro-intestinal irritation will.be induced, affecting the whole 
system of the organic nerves, and causing a powerful determi- 
nation of the fluids to the centre, and a copious flow- of crude 
and very exasperating serous fluid into the alimentary canal, 
for the morbidly instinctive purpose of flooding away, as it 
were, the irritating cause. Violent vomiting and purging, for 
the same instinctive purposes, ensue : attended generally, at 
first, with a high state of irritation and inflammatory action of 
the vascular system. The determination to the centre is still 
increased. Insensible perspiration is suppressed, — respira- 
tion is labored and difficult, — the external capillary organs 
are prostrated : and the skin becomes cold and death-like ; 
while the mesenteric, and other central vessels become over- 
charged and generally highly inflamed. The liver, partak- 
ing of the distracting irritations, suffers spasmodic strictures 
of the gall-duct, and thus its important secretions are shut 
out from the alimentary canal. 

If the vital energies of the nerves of organic life are much 
impaired, and the whole system of these nerves be in a state 
of excessive morbid irritability, the gastric or gastro-intesti- 
nal irritation will soon become overwhelming, and the ali- 
mentary canal, in some or all its parts, immediately becomes 
an abnormal centre of action to the whole domain of organic 
nerves! The nervous energies, which in a normal state ra- 
diate, as it were, from their natural ceutre or centres, to the 
heart, arteries, veins, capillaries, and all the other organs of 
the system, are almost or entirely distracted, — the organs are 
paralyzed — their functions are scarcely performed at all, or 
entirely cease. The functions of the skin in particular, are 
wholly arrested, and the impurities which it should throw off, 
remain in the blood, to diminish its vitality and oppress the 
system. The blood vessels approach the same condition ;— - 



25 

the heart heats feebly, and perhaps intermits ; — circulation is 
extremely languid; and the pulse scarcely perceptible; — res- 
piration is exceedingly labored and difficult : the calorific 
function necessarily ceases in the external parts, and the ex- 
tremities and surface generally, become deadly cold; and 
the skin is often covered with a cold clammy moisture. The 
blood thickens, grows dark and sizy, and its vitality rapidly 
declines : while at the same time, all that can flow in the 
system, rushes, in horrid anarchy, to the centre, producing 
the most violent congestion in the vessels leading to, and in 
the vicinity of the alimentary canal, causing an intense heat 
and high excitability of the parts, and inundating the stom- 
ach and intestines with a most excruciating serous fluid, 
which tortures beyond measure, the highly irritated and now 
keenly sensitive mucous membrane which lines them ; and 
thus exceedingly augments the suffering and increases the 
dreadful disorder. 

In such a state of things, can we wonder at the violent 
vomiting and purging? Can we be surprised at the inter- 
mission, or entire cessation of the pulse ; — at the complete 
suspension of the function of animal heat in the superficial 
organs, and the consequent coldness of the surface and ex- 
tremities ?'• Or can it be a matter of astonishment, that all 
the muscles of voluntary and involuntary motion, supplied 
with nerves from the ganglionic system, brought, as they are, 
under a distracting and paramount influence, from this new 
centre of action, should be thrown into the most violent and 
painful spasms and. convulsions ?■ — Indeed ! can we wonder 
at any of the horrid manifestations of this terrible disease — • 
this fearful anarchy of the organic powers— -this tremendous 
vengeance of the injured, exasperated and frantic instinct? 
For it is worthy of remark, that this dreadful epidemic ap- 
pears to be peculiarly a disease of the organic domain. An- 
imal life is seldom much affected by it, except through the 
medium of the ganglionic nerves; and the brain, in particu- 
lar, is seldom so much disturbed as to disorder the mental 
manifestations. 

A still more extreme case takes place in those who by. ex« 
cessive sensuality, filthiness and pernicious diet, have reduced 
the vital powers of their organic nerves almost to the line of 
death; an overwhelming gastrointestinal irritation arrests, 
-at jonce,- all their 'feeble functions of life; inducing in a mo* 
ment, as it were, a universal prostration, and almost instanta- 
neous death, as with apoplexy or a sun-stroke. Great num- 
bers of the canal-diggers died in this terrible manner, at 



26 

Georgetown, D. C, and elsewhere, in the summer of 1831, 
and in this same awful manner, the present epidemic has cut 
off thousands of wretched beings ! 

In regard to the causes of this direful epidemic, I have 
already entered so fully into the consideration of them, that 
it is not necessary for me again to be very minute in their 
general detail. 

It may be said, in general terms, that the primary and 
paramount cause, is always, the peculiar condition of the 
human system, resulting from the violation of the laws of 
organic life. Its more immediately exciting causes, however, 
are various ; such as atmospheric changes and conditions — 
quality and quantity of food — excesses of every kind : but 
more than all, perhaps, the excesses of filthy sensuality, and 
the use of artificial stimulants, and especially of the narcot- 
ic and alcoholic kinds; — in short, anything and everything 
that reduces the vital powers of the nerves of organic life ; 
and brings the alimentary canal and with it the whole system, 
into a state of extreme, morbid irritability ; leaving little 
power in the system to sustain high irritation, and to resist 
and throw off noxious and disturbing causes. 

It may, however, with confidence be asserted, that all the 
causes which obtain, beyond the control of man, would sel- 
dom or never develope this disease without the concurrence 
of those causes which operate through his voluntary conduct. 

But is there not some subtle agent, some pestilential es- 
sence, or some living substance, — entirely distinct from, and 
independent of human agency, and above human control, — 
which passes from place to place, and by its own independent 
and absolute and malignant energy, induces this terrible dis- 
ease wherever it exerts its influence 1 

I reply to this; in the first place, that the philosophy of 
the case requires no such cause; and in the second place, 
that an accurate investigation of all the phenomena and facts 
in the case would never lead inductively to such a conclu- 
sion ; and therefore, in the third place, that I cannot possi- 
bly yield my conviction to such an opinion. 

How then shall we account for the fact, that this disease 
is so extensively epidemic 1 

That disease has swept over a great portion of the earth's 
surface with terrible devastations, is too fatally true to be de- 
nied : but what evidence is there of the essential identity, 
in all cases, as to the cause, of the disease, which under the 
name of Epidemic Cholera, has committed such fearful rav- 
ages in Asia and Europe 1 Is it replied that all the manifest- 






27 

ations and effects have been the same? But is this conclu- 
sive 1 A fatal dose of arsenic introduced into the human 
stomach, will produce manifestations and effects, so entirely 
like those of malignant cholera morbus, that very few, if any, 
of the most skilful physicians, without some other informa- 
tion than that which they derive from the manifestations and 
effects, would, when cholera morbus was prevailing, hesitate 
a moment, to pronounce it that disease. A thousand other 
causes may, with the concurrence and co-operation of pecu- 
liar circumstances, develope the same symptoms, and cause 
the same results. 

Every pathologist ought to understand the nature of man 
thoroughly, in ail its powers and properties ; — not only or- 
ganic and animal, but also mental and moral. He ought to 
be intimately acquainted with the physical and intellectual 
reciprocities : the full range and power of sympathies, and 
all their physiological, and pathological, and psychological 
effects. In order to this, he ought to observe man in every 
attitude and condition, and under all circumstances and in- 
fluences; and avail himself of every advantage and every 
species of information by which he can ascertain the truth. 

Much light mi^ht be thrown on pathological subjects, by 
a correct observation and analysis of the phenomena attend- 
ing, what may, without irreverence, be called the moral and 
religious epidemics, which often become very extensive in 
society. I do not name these things with disrespect, but 
merely for the purpose of exhibiting the effects of mental 
action on the bodily system. 

Time will not, however, at present, allow me to enter so 
far as might be interesting, and even instructing, into a mi- 
nute detail of these effects on the functions and conditions 
of the stomach, liver, heart, lungs, skin, brain< and other 
organs, and the pathological results which often obtain. I 
can only, at present, name some of the prominent results, 
which will serve to elucidate the subject before us; nor shall 
I pretend to chronological, nor geographical accuracy in the 
history of the facts which I mention ; bul 1 will endeavor to 
be correct in the facts themselves. 

About thirty years since, a powerful religious excitement 
commenced somewhere, I believe, in the state of Vermont. 
A fearful solemnity pervaded almost every mind. Deep and 
continued anxiety, arising from the exhibition and contempla- 
tion of awful subjects, and the fearful expectation of the 
presence and action of a mysterious agent, so affected the 
bodily organs and functions, that, in a moment of overwhelm- 



29 

ing excitement, an individual fell prostrate, as though sud- 
denly struck dead by apoplexy* There was an entire suspen- 
sion of animal life for some minutes. This necessarily in- 
creased the awful excitement of those who saw or heard of 
it. It was fully believed to be the effect of the immediate 
action of the Spirit of God, in renewing the soul ; and there- 
fore, every one, with still more fearful anxiety, began to feel 
himself in the presence of the same mysterious agent, and 
that he was at every instant liable to become subject to the 
same action and the same effect. This again necessarily and 
very powerfully increased the predisposition of the body for 
such an effect. The result was, that another, and another, 
and another, fell in the same manner, and fully confirmed 
the belief, that it was a phenomenon connected with the mys- 
terious operation of the Spirit of God in converting the soul. 
This led the subjects themselves to the full conviction that 
such a phenomenon was a demonstration of their genuine 
conversion ; and they awoke from their swoon, believing, and 
often shouting aloud in the rapturr of their belief, that they 
had become the inalienable heirs of eternal life and happi- 
ness. Of course, every tongue, with solemn tone, rehearsed 
the awful story. The excitementjextended and increased, — 
and the phenomenon of falling down in a swoon, became 
truly epidemic. Preachers, and others, full of zeal, passed 
from place to place, and, with all the ardor of enthusiasm, 
and the untiring earnestness of those who desire to save the 
souls of their fellow creatures from eternal ruin, repeated 
and repeated the solemn story, with all the skill of circum- 
stantial detail, and fervently, and often terrifically importuned 
their hearers to repent and believe, now, in the day of God's 
mighty power. 

The consequence was, that sympathies were aroused,-— 
excitements were produced — and individuals began to fall 
prostrate, and wake from their swoons rejoicing and shout- 
ing ! — and in this manner this species of epidemic spread 
over a considerable portion of New England, and huridreds, 
if not thousands, were either " struck down " suddenly, or 
powerfully agitated, and nearly paralyzed in their bodily 
powers. 

A similar excitement took place, several years since, I be- 
lieve in Kentucky, in which the subjects were affected with 
powerful spasms in the muscles of the limbs— or sudden 
twitching and jerkings in the arms and legs. . This was also 
fully believed to be the effect of the immediate action of the j 
Spirit of God in the work of conversion ; ard consequently 



29 

was regarded with fearful awe. Large circles were formed 
for prayer, and the anxious were brought within the circles— 
and united, and sometimes vehement and even boisterous 
prayer was offered, that the Holy Spirit would come down 
and convert them ; and these prayers were believed to be an- 
swered by the Spirit's operations, when the " jerking" com- 
menced, which soon took place, and generally extended to 
most of those within the ring. 

Some daring young men entered these circles, with the 
spirit of derision, — intending to practise an imposition on 
the religious; but with horror, they soon found themselves, 
as they believed, under the irresistible influence of the Holy 
Spirit, and became powerfully affected with the involuntary 
spasms, and left the circle with the firm belief that they were 
converted. Such instances went still farther to confirm the 
popular belief that these "jerks," as they were called, were 
the effects of the direct and irresistible, though mysterious 
agency of the Holy Spirit. The consequence was, that they 
became extensively epidemic ; and those who were the most 
powerfully affected in this way, were considered the most 
signally favored, by the abundance of the power of the Holy 
Spirit. 

I might adduce several other instances of extensive relig- 
ious excitements, which have been attended with different 
bodily phenomena, of as marked and peculiar character as 
any I have named. But I have already mentioned enough 
for my present purpose; which is solely to show that certain 
actions of the mind may produce certain conditions of the 
nervous system, causing corresponding effects on the organs 
and functions of the body ; and that when peculiar causes 
have produced peculiar phenomena, and the causes are fully 
believed to be general, mysterious and irresistible, and the 
phenomena the necessary results of the action of those caus- 
es, the mind of all, coming under the same strong and con- 
tinued excitement, may so act on the bodily sympathies, and 
through them, on the organs and tissues, a& absolutely to in- 
duce the same involuntary phenomena in most or all; and 
thus render them extensively epidemic; while the very fact 
that they are extensively epidemic will serve to establish more 
firmly the popular belief in an identical, mysterious; and 
irresistible agent. 

Now, if such is the philosophy, so far as bodily phenome- 
na or symptoms are concerned, of moral and religious epi- 
demics, why should we utterly disregard these things in pa- 
thological reasoning, and travel over the whole field of con- 
3 



30 

jecture in order to find an adequate cause, when such a cause 
presents itself in the power of the sympathies directed by 
the actions of the mind ? Indeed we have the record ot facts 
directly in point to illustrate this doctrine in pathology. "It 
is well authenticated that females in the Royal Infirmary at 
Edinburgh, who were affected with hysteric fits, occasioned 
the same infirmity in others. It is well known, too, that in 
the poor house at Haerlem, in Holland, many years ago, a 
girl, under some impression of terror, fell into a convulsive 
disease, which extended on the mere principle of sympathy, 
to nearly all the boys and girls in the house. The celebrated 
Doctor Boerhaave put a stop to it, by preparing certain irons, 
and having them made red hot, in the presence of the chil- 
dren, and declaring, with great solemnity, that every child 
which manifested any symptoms of the disease, must be 
burnt to the bone with one of these hot irons. There was 
no occasion to use them, and the disease was no more known. 
In the year 1803, a species of St. Vitus's dance became ep- 
idemic in one of the United States, on the same principle. 
Many more well authenticated instances of this kind might 
be named, extending through parishes, villages, and districts 
of this country. " 

But do you ask if I believe that such a cause can absolute- 
ly produce the Asiatic, spasmodic cholera 1 I reply, that I 
fully believe that, when long continued abuses have reduced 
the vital energies of the nerves of organic life to a very low 
level, in a great portion of the human family, extending over 
the face of the earth ; and the human system is thereby 
strongly predisposed to take on disease, while it is little able 
to sustain it, — if certain local causes shall develope a disease 
pretty extensively, of a fatal and terrific character, the cause 
which I have named, is alone sufficient to keep up an epidem- 
ic disease, which shall be attended with most or all the prom- 
inent symptoms of the first, and become as extensive as the 
quarry in which it originated. Moreover, such a cause, by 
long acting on those of better habits, may so irritate and de- 
bilitate the nerves of organic life, and so disturb the various 
functions of the system, as to bring on disorders, which will 
predispose the body to take on disease, and this, being im- 
properly treated, may terminate either in the prevailing dis- 
ease itself, or one which shall so assimilate itself, in all its 
symptoms, to the prevailing disease, that it will be unhesitat- 
ingly pronounced the same : and thus, epidemic disease may 
not only range over the level of its origin, but also frequently 
undermine, and sweep away many in the higher orders of habit 
and condition. 



3i 

In the winter of 1809-10, a disease broke out in New 
England, (I believe in Hartford, Connecticut,) which was 
very sudden in its attack, brief and violent in its career, and 
fatal in its effects. Much alarm was of course produced : 
every body talked about the new and terrible disease ; and 
every one was eager to hear the latest accounts of its pro- 
gress and fatality. All the symptoms of the disease were 
carefully observed and published in the newspapers, and still 
more extensively by the ten thousand tongues of busy rumor, 
and listened to with deepest sensibility by the ten thousand 
ears of fearful anxiety. The skill of the physicians was baf- 
fled ; profound and awful mystery enveloped the cause, and 
covered the mode and means of cure. The "physicians, in 
the general panic and incertitude, abandoned the philosophy 
of physiological pathology, and gave themselves up to con- 
jectural speculation and excited imaginations! — All was 
dreadful uncertainty, and fearful apprehension, and irresisti- 
ble fatality. Death, shrouded in the impenetrable darkness 
of Egyptian midnight, walked forth with terrible omnipo- 
tence! The dying bowed their heads and expired in unut- 
terable agony; and the living looked on with trembling con- 
sternation, and felt that they were contemplating the horrid 
imagery of their own unavoidable destiny! Universal panic 
reigned with fearful despotism over the morbid sensibilities 
of society ; and every sympathetic pain and affection were 
apprehended with dismay, as an indubitable symptom of the 
fatal disease ! — Remedial experiments, corresponding in vio- 
lence with the supposed power and malignity of the cause of 
the disease, were numerously tried ; and the work of death 
was more terrifically accelerated. Then, too, as in all other 
epidemics, ignorant quacks, with the well-meant concurrence 
of newspaper editors, spawned and promulgated their offi- 
cious and mercenary prescriptions, to deceive the credulous, 
and bewilder the doubtful, and increase the excitement, and 
extend the devastation. — Medical men rashly published their 
violent specifics, which became, in the hands of the terrified, 
like the weapons of death in the hands of the insane ! Hun- 
dreds, and probably thousands, felt the symptoms, and in the 
delirium of fear, poured down fatal quantities of brandy and 
laudanum, and plunged drunken and stupified into the forced 
embrace of death ! And thus the tremendous havoc swept 
on, spreading consternation before it, and leaving desolation 
behind ? Legislatures adjourned, and fled in dismay — the 
affairs of society stagnated — business was neglected, and 
men sat down in despondency and despair, to brood over 



32 

their sympathies; fearfully watching- for symptoms, constant- 
ly taking preventives, and literally preparing their bodies for 
death ! 

In such a state of things, — and I have not given an exag- 
gerated description — is it surprising that the epidemic Spot- 
ted Fever, or Cold Plague, should extend over a considerable 
portion of New England, and sweep off hundreds or thou- 
sands in its career? — And yet I have been assured by a 
highly respectable physician in Massachusetts, that after 
losing three patients with this disease, by the established 
mode of practice of the time, he abandonded that mode, and 
governed himself entirely by the indications of physiological 
pathology, and adapted his practice to the symptoms of the 
case, and never, after that, lost a single patient by that dis- 
ease, although his practice in it was uncommonly extensive. 
Indeed, he assured me that the disease when properly treat- 
ed, was more easily managed, than what is ordinarily called a 
bad cold. 

An epidemic disease bearing the same name, but less ex- 
tensive and less fatal, because attended with less panic, and 
less error of treatment, has, for a considerable time past, 
prevailed in and about New London, Connecticut. There 
have been, I believe, several hundred cases; the greater part 
of which have most unquestionably been purely sympathetic. 

It is more than probable that an epidemic disease of any 
very great extent and mortality, never prevailed among man- 
kind, in which morbid sympathy and mental action did not 
constitute a very considerable portion of the efficiency of the 
epidemic cause. The history of all past epidemics corrobo- 
rates this opinion ; and we find that whenever and wherever 
the plague has prevailed, not a few even of the medical pro- 
fession have believed that fear was chiefly concerned in prop- 
agating that terrible disease. Undoubtedly there have been 
at some periods in the history of the world, causes, connected 
with the disturbances of the earth, such as earthquakes, vol- 
canic eruptions, &c &c, and perhaps also with the influ- 
ence of some of the heavenly bodies, which have produced 
extensive epidemic diseases that have destroyed great num- 
bers of the human species, and of the lower orders of ani- 
mals. But these instances have, I am confident, been very 
few; while as a general rule, as I have already said, it may 
with confidence be asserted that a!l the causes which obtain 
beyond the control of man, would seldom or never develope 
epidemic disease, without the concurrence of those causes 
which operate through his voluntary conduct. And I am 



33 

entirely confident that every symptom and effect, by which 
what is called the Epidemic Cholera, is ordinarily attended, 
may be superinduced, in certain conditions of the human 
system, by mental action and remedial agents. 

Let me not be misunderstood : I do not say that mental 
action will absolutely induce spasmodic cholera, in any state 
of the body ; but, that in certain conditions of the body, men- 
tal action may so affect the nerves of organic life, as to cause 
that gastro-intestinal irritation, which is the basis of all the 
symptoms of spasmodic cholera ; and that continued mental 
actio* of the same character, may reduce the body, from any 
state of health, to that condition in which the disease may 
be superinduced. 

We know that overwhelming fear, by arresting at once 
all the functions of life, may cause instantaneous death ; and 
we kiaow that violent and continued fear may so affect the 
hair of the head, in a few hours, as to destroy its color : and 
that the same passion will suspend in an instant the func- 
tions of the skin and superficial capillaries, and impel the 
fluids from the surface to the centre, leaving the skin cold 
and corrugated, and cause a spasmodic, and irregular, and 
interrupted action of the heart and lungs, and induce pain 
and even severe cramp in the epigastric region ; and great 
irritation of the liver and kidneys, and sudden and violent 
evacuations of the bowels and Madder, attended often, with 
severe and painful spasms of the body and limbs; and some- 
times ending in sudden death. 

Unfortunately, however, in all times of great epidemical 
excitements, fear is not left to work single-handed in the 
mighty mischief, but leads to the use of such medical pre- 
ventives and remedies, as are even more pernicious in their 
effects on the vital powers, than the passion itself; and thus 
the ruinous operation is carried on, while intemperance, and 
irregularities of every kimd, come in as immediately exciting 
causes of disease, to consummate the dreadful work of death. 

'To illustrate this doctrine still farther, let us take a single 
case in detail. Suppose an individual in good health, by 
continually hearing the accounts of the dreadful mortality, 
and terrible progress of the Cholera, to be filled with fearful 
anxiety in view of the probability that it will visit the place 
where he resides, and the possibility that he may fall a vic- 
tim to it. He is constantly bearing fresh and shocking ac- 
counts of its rayages, and learns all its symptoms and hor- 
rors. The mystery of its cause, and the malignity of its 
career, increase his dread! His thoughts frequently revert 
3* 



34 

to the painful subject, and the suggestion arises in his mind, 
<f I may fall by this awful disease ! " — At length his mind 
comes to brood almost habitually on the alarming subject. 
His spirits necessarily become more or less depressed, di- 
gestion is disturbed, his appetite is impaired, the skin be- 
comes relaxed and debilitated, its functions are less vigorous 
and complete, the circulation languishes : the lungs, the liv- 
er, the kidneys, and all the other organs, partake of the dis- 
turbance, and all their functions are correspondently impair- 
ed. Assimilation, secretion, and all the other vital proces- 
ses, are deteriorated. All this reacts upon the stomach, and 
brain, and nervous system generally, to depress still farther 
the vital powers, and still more impair the functions : and 
these disorders of the body react upon the mind, to increase 
its despondency, and this again depresses still more, the 
functions of the body. And now the terrible accounts begin 
to produce great nervous agitation; and this increases ner- 
vous debility and morbid irritability, which still farther en- 
feeble the vital powers of reaction against disturbing and 
noxious causes, and predispose the body to disease, and sub- 
ject the individual to those frequent nervous and sympathetic 
pains and affections which the fearful mind readily conceives 
to be the premonitory symptoms of the disease. 

Now if the unfortunate individual had knowledge and wis- 
dom enough to regulate his conduct according to his peculiar 
state, he might, with the utmost probability, still be saved from 
the evils which he so unhappily dreads. If he would care- 
fully, in all respects, adopt a regimen suited to his peculiar 
condition and circumstances, he would be in little real dan- 
ger of the disease. But alas! how seldom is this course 
pursued ! With all their fears, and with all the disturbing 
and debilitating effects of their brooding anxieties and agita- 
tions, people generally pay little attention to their diet and 
habits of body, — as if their only danger were from some 
mysterious agent or principle in the atmosphere, or some- 
where else, which absolutely and arbitrarily destroys life, 
without regard to habits or conditions of body. Or, if they 
do attempt to regulate their diet, the articles to which they 
will restrict themselves, and their modes of preparing them, 
are often even more pernicious than the things which they 
reject ; and thus the debility and irritability of the digestive 
organs are still more increased . And to relieve themselves 
from this depression, and languor, and despondency, result- 
ing from the actions of their mind, and the conditions of their 
body, they will almost universally have recourse to strong 



35 

tea and coffee, or to cordials or tonics, or fermented or dis- 
tilled alcoholic liquors, or opiates, &c. — always, however, 
under the name of necessary preventives or medicines! All 
these things necessarily prepare fur the consummation ! Then 
comes the alarm-cry that the terrible epidemic has reached 
or broke out in the place, and begun its ruthless work of 
death ! The panic rises like a whirlwind ! The morbid 
sensibilities, excited by the actions of the mind, are full of 
premonitory symptoms and affections : this causes powerful 
agitation, which almost necessarily brings on a disordered 
state of the stomach and bowels — more especially, if there 
is the least impropriety in diet ; and by this means the panic 
is tremendously increased. In this state of vital debility, ag- 
itation and terror, some of the vile proscriptions of the news- 
papers are adopted, and the most pernicious, and often the 
most fatal articles, in the form of medicine, are thrown into 
the disordered and extremely irritable stomach. Perhaps, 
also, articles of diet of the most improper character are re- 
ceived into the alimentary canal; or it may he, that in this 
state of the system, some impure air — some noxious exhala- 
tion—some infectious effluvium, of a local nature or generation, 
acts on the highly morbid mucous membrane of the alimen- 
tary canal, so that by some or all of these causes, a violent 
irrritation is produced in the alimentary canal, modified in 
its manifestations by the actions of the mind ; and a power- 
ful determination of the fluids to the centre, and excessive 
central congestion, are caused by the gastro-intestinal irrita- 
tion ; a crude and exacerbating serous fluid is poured into 
the alimentary canal, increasing exceedingly the irritation ; 
and then follow violent vomiting and purging, spasms, as- 
phyxia, and all the other symptoms by which the case is as- 
certained to be spasmodic cholera ; and these symptoms are 
generally much aggravated by stimulating substances. 

The case which I have adduced, supposes a tolerably 
sound state of health in the nerves of organic life previous 
to the commencement of the panic or fearful anxiety ; but 
throughout the whole of the human family, and especially in 
large cities and towns, a very considerable proportion of so- 
ciety is habitually in that low state of the vital energies, 
which requires little or none of the preparation for disease, 
that I have just described : their diet is sometimes — though 
in this country, unnecessarily, — scanty, seldom of the best 
kind, often of a very pernicious quality ; and their exposures 
are frequently great. Still, however, all these causes togeth- 
er contribute much less to the actual developement of epU 



36 

demic disease, than the universal and generally excessive 
use of artificial stimulants; in which the poorest and most 
wretched portions of society indulge. 

It is a well known fact, that immense numbers of the in- 
habitants of Europe and Asia, as well as of our own country, 
will voluntarily subsist on one or two scanty meals a day, of 
miserable food, for the sake of procuring their ordinary quan- 
tity of tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, whiskey, arrack, or some 
other kind of intoxicating substance. Reckless as these un- 
fortunate beings generally appear to be, yet they neverthe- 
less partake of the general panic; which, unhappily, instead 
of restraining them from their habitual errors, more fre- 
quently, on the other hand, drives them to greater excess, as 
a refuge from the very calamity into which they are blindly 
precipitating themselves ! 

In such a state of things, fatal disease must necessarily be 
soon induced ;, and in such bodies, it must be malignant, vi- 
olent, and brief; — and under such circumstances and influ- 
ences, what would, at another time, have appeared only "sud- 
den death," from drunkenness or excess, would now, almost 
necessarily, take on the type, and exhibit the symptoms, of 
the prevailing epidemic. Every such death will increase the 
panic, and consequently multiply the deaths, till excesses, 
and filth, and disease wiW, if other circumstances be favora- 
ble, generate a malignantly infectious effluvium, which will 
come in with the other causes, to carry on with tremendous 
energy, the terrible work of destruction. 

From this combination of causes, a pestilential efficiency 
is produced which those of healthier condition and better 
habits, and even the lower order of animals, will often fall 
before. Thus the moral fens and morasses of society become 
the sources of pestilence and death to those who have, per- 
haps culpably, neglected to improve their condition. 

It is upon this principle of mental action, affecting physi- 
ological conduct, and determining pathological affections and 
manifestations, that the notorious fact is to be accounted for, 
that during the prevalence of such an epidemic as the present, 
almost all other diseases assume the symptoms of, and run 
into, the prevailing disease: for this is seldom, if ever, the 
fact to any considerable extent, only during the prevalence 
of such epidemics as are attended with great panic. 

The epidemic Influenza is caused entirely by certain sud- 
den changes in the atmosphere, acting on the humap system 
in certain conditions, which result from the voluntary habits 
and customs of civic life ; but this is attended with little or 



37 

no panic, however extensive and fatal the disease; nor dur- 
ing its prevalence, do any, except cognate diseases, take on 
its type. The same is true of all epidemic diseases of this 
predicament. 

On the whole, therefore, though I do not pretend that pan- 
ic, or mental action, can absolutely and immediately produce 
real spasmodic ch'ok'ra, in any and every condition of the 
human system, yet I do confidently assert that, taking into 
view the various causes which are continually operating on 
mankind, to reduce the vital powers of the nerves of organ- 
ic life, and considering the actual condition of a large por- 
tion of the human family, as to vital power of organic func- 
tion, and resistance to noxious and pestilential agents, men- 
tal action alone, is, through the modus operandi which I have 
described, an adequate cause for the epidemic character of 
the present prevailing disease, called spasmodic cholera, 
throughout the human race ! 

Still, however, let it be remembered, that I do not say that 
this disease is in every individual case preceded by panic, or 
induced by mental action. I contend that highly malignant 
pestilential causes may be locally generated, and acton those 
who would not otherwise have had the disease, nor even with 
these causes, without a predisposition resulting generally, if 
not invariably, from their own voluntary conduct : and I con- 
tend also, that the pestilential cause or causes may be con- 
veyed to, and fatally act, to some extent, in places where 
they would not have originated: and that they may be origi- 
nated, in the manner I have described, in other places fa- 
vorable for their generation, without the assistance of any 
imparted infection or medium of contagion. 

Treatment. 

The next question which comes to us, is — How shall we 
treat this dreadful disease ?— Here I confess, with a deep 
sense of the responsibility resting upon my undertaking, and 
of my want of knowledge of materia medica, that I -feel fully 
conscious that I am passing from physiological and patholog- 
ical premises, into the somewhat uncertain field of therapeu- 
tics. Perhaps it will be thought that I should stop short, nor 
presume to venture a speculative opinion on so momentous a 
subject. But since I have taken it upon me to speak, I will 
proceed : yet I will endeavor to be exceedingly cautious. 

What, then, shall we do with this disease, especially when 
it assumes its severest and most fearful character ?— When 



38 

we find a prostration of all the functions of life ; when the 
skin is totally paralyzed, the animal heat gone from the sur- 
face and extremities, the breath cold, the tongue dry, voice 
lost or very feeble, the heart scarcely heaving a sluggish, in- 
termittent pulse, while violent vomiting and purging, and 
dreadful spasms, and burning pains in the epigastric region, 
and severe cramps in the limbs and extremities, seem terribly- 
hastening the work of death, what shall be done ? For sure- 
ly, something must be done, and done quickly, or death will 
have achieved its victory ! 

I ask again, what is the immediate cause of all this de- 
rangement and prostration? Is it any external agent acting 
on the exterior surface, causing a paralysis and collapse of 
the superficial organs, and driving the fluids to the centre? 
Certainly not ! — Is it any agent applying itself directly to 
the nervous system as a whole, and inducing general pros- 
tration, collapse, and the other symptoms in the case? By 
no means! — What then shall we call it ? Most evidently 
and certainly, it is irritation in the alimentary canal, origi- 
nated as I have described, and excited to madness by the 
acrid fluids which are pouring in from every quarter, and 
producing an excitement which distracts the normal distribu- 
tion of nervous energy, from the natural centres to the seve- 
ral organs, and exerts a paramount influence over all the or- 
gans of the body, and blindly drags all the vital energies into 
the vortex of its own maniac fury ! 

But what shall we do? What does nature indicate by her 
conduct ? Does she not open the orifices of her alimentary 
canal, and with the agony of a blind and desperate Samson, 
heave, with all her remaining energies, to throw ofT the irri- 
tating and deranging cause from her smarting sensibilities? 

She asks for assistance ! And does not the nature of the 
case, more than indicate the kind ? 

But it is said that we must rouse the prostrated functions ! 
We must produce heat, and circulation, and excite the ac- 
tion of the. skin, and overcome the spasms, and arrest the 
vomiting and purging: and how can all this be done, without 
the exhibition of narcotics and stimulants? I say again, 
that all the prostration and derangement is owing to gastric, 
or gastro-intestinal irritation, which has become an abnormal 
and maniac centre of action to the whole system of organic 
nerves, and all the organs depending on them for functional 
ppwer? Remove this irritation, and suffer the normal cen- 
tres qf action to throw their energies upon the organs, and 
the prostration and derangement are overcome, and the func- 



39 

aons restored ! In such a state of things, will you exhibit 
your exasperating stimulants and deadly narcotics ? 

And for what purpose ? To shut up the flood-gates through 
which nature is trying to relieve herself; and by your nar- 
cotics, to kill the excess of vital activity in the irritated or- 
gans, and by your fiery stimulants, to roll back the tide of 
ruin to other outlets, and force the heart and other organs to 
rouse from their prostration and perform their functions, un- 
der all the embarrassments of distracting irritation in the 
gastro-intestinal centre? 

But has not such practice been successful ? — Doubtless 
there have been instances in which such practice has been 
apparently if not really successful : — or in other words, some 
patients have recovered either with, or in spite of, this treat- 
ment. During the prevalence of all epidemics, and espe- 
cially those which are attended with great- panic, there are 
always many spurious cases; and in these cases of purely 
panic, or sympathetic cholera, the exhibition of brandy and 
laudanum, (or some other powerful stimulants,) may some- 
times seem to afford immediate relfef; but even in such cases, 
always at the hazard of life. When these articles are ad- 
ministered, however, in cases of real spasmodic cholera, if 
any benefit results, it is only in cases where the patient has 
previously been addicted to the free use of alcoholic liquors, 
and in the nervous tissue of whose alimentary canal, there is 
still remaining vital susceptibility and energy enough to re- 
ceive and diffuse over the whole nervous domain, a stimula- 
tion sufficiently powerful to counteract the ruling despotism 
of the gastro-intestinal irritation, and force the organs into a 
performance of their functions, in spite of its bewildering 
and distracting influence. But if this species of forced ac- 
tion is not kept up by the contiuual administration of the 
stimulants, the patient must relapse with fearful rapidity, to 
the inevitably fatal action of the disease : and if it is kept 
up for any considerable time, the idiopathic character of the 
disease may indeed be broken up, but it is always at the ut- 
most risk of so wearing out the susceptibilities and energies 
of the system, that it will sink down into an equally fatal dis- 
ease of a different type ; or, if this should not be the case, 
and the patient should recover from the cholera by such treat- 
ment, he will continue, for a considerable time, to be subject 
to a serious derangement of the stomach and bowels, and will 
be exceedingly liable to another attack of the cholera, from 
the slightest exposure or error of conduct. The cases, how- 
ever, must be very few, in which the least apparent benefit is 






40 

derived from this mode of treatment ; while, on the other 
hand, the most tremendously ruinous effects are produced by 
such a practice. 

How, then, you ask again, shall we raise the system from 
its dreadful prostration, and overcome the spasms, and arrest 
the violent vomiting and purging? 

Again I say, remove the irritation of the alimentary canal 
and the spasms and vomiting and purging will cease; and 
the heart and the other organs will immediately recognize 
their allegiance to their normal centres of action, and per- 
form their functions without unnatural force. 

But how shall we remove the gastro-intestinal irritation? 
This depends much on the peculiar nature of the case. 
Sometimes, as we have seen, the irritation depends entirely 
on the presence of an irritating substance in the alimentary 
canal ; such as improper articles of diet, &x.; and sometimes, 
from the peculiar condition of the system, and especially, of 
the nervous tissue of the alimentary canal, the irritation, by 
whatever immediate cause induced, will propagate itself, and 
become a pathological affection of the tissue. 

When the irritation is not overwhelming at first, the sys- 
tem instinctively endeavors to relieve herself, by pouring an 
increased quantity of mucous secretion into the alimentary 
canal, and thus relaxing and evacuating the bowels in order 
to remove the irritating cause; and if the stomach and in- 
testines are in a healthy and vigorous state, and the patient 
is careful to abstain from every thing that would increase or 
keep up the irritation, the system will entirely relieve herself 
by her own instinctive efforts, and as soon as the irritating 
cause has been evacuated, the bowels will resume their 
healthy action. But when, from the previously debilitated 
and morbidly irritable state of the alimentary canal, the su- 
perinduced irritation becomes a pathological affection of its 
nervous tissue, the mucous secretion will run into a serous or 
watery character, and the relax will be followed by a diarrhoea, 
of a more or less mild or severe character, corresponding 
with the previous state of the system and the degree of mor- 
bid irritation. 

If the diarrhoea be of a mild character, and the previ- 
ous habits of the patient have not been bad; and if he 
keep quiet within doors, and totally and scrupulously re 
frain from every kind of medicine and aliment, solid and 
fluid, except alittle simple Indian-meal gruel, or rice water, 
or coarse unbolted wheat meal gruel , or wheat bran tea, 
without any seasoning taking this at stated period and in 



41 

moderate quantities, so as not to interfere with the process of 
digestion ; and if the patient use a good deai of friction over 
the whole surface, and especially over the stomach and bow- 
els, with a flesh-brush, or coarse towel, or flannel; and be 
careful to keep clean in person, clothing, bed, house, &,c, 
avoiding confined and impure, and damp, cold air, the mor- 
bid irritation will be entirely subdued in the course of twen- 
ty-four hours ; and then, if the patient will subsist the next 
twenty-four hours on good, sweet, well-baked, coarse, stale 
bread, taking it at his regular meal times, and masticating it 
very fully, using no butter nor any thing else with it, and no. 
other drink but his gruel or good soft water, at the end of the 
forty-eight hours he will find his bowels in a perfectly healthy 
state and action. But as surely as he takes any improper ar- 
ticle of diet into his stomach, whether "Solid or fluid, while 
the diarrhoea is on him, he will increase the irritation, and 
aggravate the disease. 

In some instances where the diarrhoea has assumed a 
chronic character, and does not readily yield to the regimen 
prescribed, the patient will do well to fast entirely for twenty- 
four hours, taking nothing into the stomach, except in case of 
thirst a little pure soft water ; and after such a fast let him 
take at his regular meal times, a little gruel made of the 
coarse wheat meal, it he can get it ; if not, of prepared bar- 
ley or oats, or indian meal, and on the third day use the bread 
as above directed.. 

Let it always be remembered, that the diarrhoea is not the 
disease, but the morbid irritation is the disease; and the di- 
arrhoea is the morbidly instinctive manner in which the sys- 
tem is endeavoring to remove the irritation; and therefore an 
attempt to suppress the diarrhoea upon any other principle 
than by subduing the irritation, will almost inevitably increase 
the disorder. It is true that the morbid character of the se- 
rous fluid which is poured into the intestines, is a powerful 
cause of the irritation, and therefore it is highly desirable 
that the diarrhoea should be suppressed as soon as may be; 
but still, I say, it must not be done by any means incompat- 
ible with the morbid irritation and irritability of the nervous 
tissue of the alimentary canal. Hence, brandy and lauda- 
num, brandy and sugar, spirits of any kind, — wine, or fer- 
mented liquors of any sort, — camphor, peppermint, pepper, 
mustard, coffee, tea, and all other things of the kind, taken 
to stop the diarrhoea, are all, in their respective degrees, cal- 
culated to aggravate the real disease, and bring on vomiting 
and spasms, and increased determination to the centre, and 
4 



42 

general prostration and collapse, or asphyxia and death ! It 
is true that most of these things may sometimes arrest the 
diarrhoea; but it is necessarily upon a principle which ren- 
ders it almost certain that the disorder will soon return again 
with increased violence; and more especially if any pesti- 
lential cause be acting upon the system, It is also true that 
in some very rare instances, patients may recover with the 
use of these articles; but the cases are only astonishing ex* 
ceptions to correct rules ; and the practice is none the less 
madly erroneous. 

In regard to the use of opium, to arrest the diarrhoea, or 
in any stage of the disease, I am convinced that it is little, 
if any less pernicious than alcohol. As a stimulant, it always 
increases the irritation , and as a narcotic, in all cases, it re- 
duces the morbid sensibility and irritation only by diminish- 
ing vitality; and consequently, without removing in any 
degree the cause of that morbid sensibility and irritation ; 
and therefore, when its narcotic properties are expended, the 
system is liable to more morbid excesses of sensibility and ir- 
ritation, with less vital power to sustain them, and to react 
against morbific causes, and throw off its own morbid affec- 
tions ; and if it be repeated so as to keep the system under 
its narcotic influence, it becomes itself a powerful cause of 
the rapid and total extinction of vitality ; and is thus very 
frequently made to supersede all other causes as an agent of 
destruction to the sick. For be it remembered, that it can- 
not possibly, in the nature of thingSj do any thing directly, 
towards restoring healthy action ; and healthy action alone 
can resist morbific causes, and give general health to the sys- 
tem. 

When the diarrhoea is of a more severe and violent char- 
acter, and especially if it be attended with pain, and with 
spasmodic affections in the hands and feet; and, indeed, it 
will perhaps be safest to say, in all cases of diarrhoea, during 
the prevalence of the cholera, the patient should keep quiet 
within doors — or even take to his bed, maintaining as much 
composure of mind as possible, carefully abstaining from every 
stimulating and heating substance, take a gentle dose of castor 
oil or of rhubarb and calcined magnesia ; or, if his previous 
habits have been bad, and his stomach, liver, and bowels have 
been torpid, take a dose of rhubarb and calomel, or a free dose 
of calomel, and remain quiet upon his bed till the medicine 
operates, taking nothing into his stomach during the day, ex- 
cept the gruel, as I have before directed, and the next day 
the bread, or some other plainly and simply prepared farina- 



43 

ceous aliment, in solid form and freely masticated ; and con- 
tinuing, for a few days at least, to be guarded and plain and 
simple in his diet, rubbing the skin freely, morning and eve- 
ning, with a flesh-brush, or coarse cloth, observing personal 
and domestic cleanliness, and avoiding confined and impure 
air, &,c., and no further inconvenience will be experienced, 
and health will be restored, unless there is some great im- 
prudence. 

In cases where the diarrhoea has been neglected, or badly- 
treated, till violent vomiting sets in with the purging, attend- 
ed with spasms in the body and limbs, cold skin, difficulty of 
breathing, &,c, both cathartics and emetics will be unavail- 
ing, and they may serve to increase the irritation. In this 
case, I should suppose that pure soft tepid water, introduced 
freely into the stomach and intestines by potations and in- 
jections, would be the best internal application that can be 
made. By this means the mucous membrane will be cleansed 
from its acrid and exacerbating humors, — its irritations great- 
ly if not entirely soothed down, and its morbid secretion and 
action subdued, and the normal functions of all the parts re- 
stored. Indeed, there is reason to believe that if nothing but 
pure soft cold water were used in great freedom, both by po- 
tation and injection, the vomiting and purging and spasms, 
and other morbid symptoms would soon begin to subside, 
and in a short time be wholly arrested. 

If, however, it should be found necessary in any case to 
use stimulants internally, I should suppose that red pepper 
would be the safest and best, because it is more permanent 
in its action than alcoholic stimulants, while perhaps there is 
no other stimulant which so little impairs the vital properties 
of the tissues on which it acts; and consequently, so little 
exposes the system to reaction and relapse. 

But perhaps the safest and most successful practice in the 
advanced stage of the disease, would be a copious use of the 
tepid or cold water internally, both by potation and injection, 
for the reasons I have just given, while red pepper, mustard, 
and such like stimulants, were applied freely to the outer skin, 
in a dry form, with brisk, and continued friction ; in order to 
produce a counter irritation and general stimulation. If this 
practice should prove successful, the patient will be in com- 
paratively little danger of consecutive fever, functional de- 
rangement or relapse. — [See Appendix, note A.] 

I repeat, however, that not being well acquainted with ma- 
teria medica, I dare not speak with confidence as to the best 
articles to be exhibited in this stage of the disease. My re*- 



44 

marks are founded entirely on what seems to me to be the 
philosophy of the case, and strictly consistent with the prin- 
ciples of physiological pathology manifested ; and I feel ex- 
ceedingly confident that if any pre-eminently successful mode 
of treating this disease shall be discovered, it will be very 
simple. But it must be confessed, that there is at present no 
little responsibility resting oh this point; and every man who 
possesses any considerable degree of m6ral sensibility, will 
hesitate and consider carefully and deliberately, before he ut- 
ters even a conjecture, as such, on so fearfully momentous a 
subject; knowing we'll, that .if erroneous, it may cause the 
death of some— -perhaps of hundreds— possibly of thousands 
of his fellow creatures, who unfortunately confide in his opin- 
ion. [See Note B.I 

Is the Cholera Contagions ? 

The question whether this disease is contagious, has. been 
warmly agitated ever since the disease has attracted public 
attention ; and the feelings which have been excited by the 
controversy have, there is reason to believe, caused medical 
gentlemen to shape and color their statements and reports, 
according to their favorite theories of contagion or non-con- 
tagion ; though I trust that this has always been done without 
the consciousness on their part, of any intentional misrepre- 
sentation. 

In the technical language. of controversy, there is a differ- 
ence between a contagious and an infectious disease. A con- 
tagious disease is taken by coming in contact with, or into the 
presence of, the person diseased ; or, at least, within the 
sphere of the action of the morbific effluvium from the body 
of the sick; but an infectious disease has a cause which ex- 
ists independently of the bodies of the sick, and may be tak- 
en with equal certainty, without coming in contact with, or 
even into the presence of any person diseased. 

The main practical difference, and which, if true, is of 
very great importance, is, that however infectious the disease 
may be, yet, if it be not contagious, there is no more danger 
in visiting and nursing the diseased, than there is in avoiding 
them; and quarantine regulations are entirely useless. 

A majority of the physicians who have turned their atten- 
tion to the subject, in Asia and Europe, and in our own coun- 
try, are, I believe, decidedly of the opinion that the Spas- 
modic Cholera is not contagious; and in their sense of the 
language, their opinion seems to be confirmed by many strong 



45 

facts : — while on the other hand, there are many important 
facts which seem to prove that, if the disease is not absolute- 
ly and literally contagious, its infectious character is such as 
greatly to increase the danger by personal intercourse. 

On the subject of contagion, however, J apprehend there is 
a universal error. We are told that there are certain diseas- 
es which are absolutely contagious; such as small-pox, hoop- 
ing-cough, measels, &,c. ; but I am not prepared to admit the 
correctness of this opinion. I do not believe that any dis* 
ease to which the human body has ever been subject is ab~ 
solutely contagious. I believe that there was a time when 
the small-pox, for instance, was entirely unknown among 
mankind ; and that it was originated in the human body by 
the violation of those laws of life which appertain to the high- 
est state of human welfare; and being once originated it was 
contagious to all those who were in the same general prediG-r 
ament of vital condition and susceptibility, — which had then 
become the case with almost the entire species; and I am 
confident that this is all true of every disease which we call 
absolutely contagious ; and consequently, that the human 
constitution is still capable of being elevated above the bus? 
ceptibility to any contagious disease ; and that thus, all con*- 
tagious diseases may be extirpated from the human family. 
Why is the small-pox robbed of more than half of its viru- 
lence by passing through the vital economy of a cow, .or any 
other strictly herbivorous animal ? Is it believed that it would 
be equally subdued by passing through the vital economy of 
a strictly carnivorous animal ? I do not know but the ex- 
periment has been made; but if it has not, it certainly is 
worthy of atriaj. 

Some diseases, however, become contagious at a much 
higher state of the constitution than others ; but this does 
not prove that a disease which is contagious only at a very 
low state of the constitution, is not as truly contagious through- 
out its own level, and all below, as is the disease which be- 
comes contagious at a much higher state of the constitution. 
The only difference is, that mankind are more likely to be 
universally, and at all times, in the predicament of the latter 
than of the former ; and hence some contagious diseases 
may prevail at all seasons of the year alike ; others may pre- 
vail more at particular seasons of the year, and others may 
prevail only at intervals of many years, and at irregular peri- 
ods, when the protracted operations of numerous causes have 
brought a larger or smaller portion of the race generally, \v^ 

4* 



46 

to their peculiar predicament. Still, however, as every con- 
tagious disease may spread over its own level, and all below 
it, so the disease which may become contagious at a much 
higher state of the constitution, will, at all time*, be more 
universally contagious throughout the whole human family, 
than the disease which becomes contagious at a much lower 
state of the constitution ; because the former embraces with- 
in the range of its capabilities, a much larger portion of man- 
kind, than the latter. Nevertheless, I say, the latter is as 
truly contagious within the range of its capabilities, as the 
former. 

From the view which 1 have taken of the nature and of 
the epidemic cause of the disease under consideration, it ap- 
pears that it does hot necessarily depend on contagion, nor 
infection, to propagate it from place to place. Powerful pan- 
ic, or mental action, with the co-operation of other causes 
which I have named, may actually originate the disease ; 
and the disease, thus originated^ may, in certain circumstan- 
ces, which always exist, to a greater or less extent, in large 
cities and towns, generate an infection of a most malignant 
character and extensive influence;" and this infection will 
lay hold of those who are somewhat above the level of its or- 
igin ; and may be conveyed to places, and , communicated to 
persons, who otherwise would have escaped. But the exten- 
sion and prevalence of the disease, in any place, when com- 
municated in this manner, by infection, depend entirely on 
the character of the place, as to airiness and cleanliness, and 
on the condition and habits of the inhabitants. On the whole, 
therefore, whatever view be taken of the question, the prop- 
agation of the disease depends lesson the absolute power of 
any pestilential oe exciting cause, than on the predisposition 
of the human system: and, consequently, whether it be re- 
garded as contagious or infectious, or even both, yet it is by 
no means absolutely so. But the fact whether it will be tak- 
en by an individual, depends on the condition of his body ; 
and that condition depends very much^ if not entirely, on his 
own voluntary conduct. 

Panic and agitation, it is true, are involuntary, and, in very 
nervous people, will considerably disturb the functions of the 
system, in spite of their best resolutions and efforts to the con- 
trary. Nevertheless, a proper regimen and correct conduct, 
and an entire abstinence from those pernicious preventives 
and remedies, which invariably predispose the body to dis- 
ease, and very frequently become the exeiting causes of the 



47 

diseases which they were taken to prevent, will very certain- 
ly preserve the body from any serious disorder. 

Means of Prevention. 

The topic which comes next under our consideration, isof 
a less uncertain character. Regarding the cause of the ep- 
idemic cholera as altogether mysterious, and the nature of 
the disease as wholly inexplicable, the means of preventing 
it have been involved in equal uncertainty. Indeed, if I 
had not the utmost confidence in the honesty and even mag- 
nanimity of the Medical Faculty as a body, I should some- 
times be compelled to suspect them of the most heartless and 
flagitious design and imposture, in order to produce a state 
of things greatly conducive to their pecuniary interest, if 
not their popularity. 

The bewildering and terrifying theories which have been 
promulgated by many in the medical profession, have been 
highly calculated to produce a state of the most painful un- 
certainty and distraction of the public mind, in regard to the 
course proper to be pursued for the prevention of this dread- 
ful disease. The consequence must necessarily be, that in 
the general incertitude and trepidation, some will pursue one 
course, and some another ; some will go to one extreme, «and 
some to another; while very few, in the Babel-confusion, will 
be fortunate enough to fall upon the truth. But the view 
which I have taken of this disease, distinctly indicates the 
mode of prevention ; — a mode not only consistent in theory, 
but established by universal fact throughout the whole career 
of the disease. 

The rules to be observed are plain, simple, and such as 
enlightened common sense, undisturbed by bewildering in- 
fluences, would always dictate. In short, they are just such 
as would be proper to be observed at any other time, in order 
to preserve the body in the healthiest and best condition ; 
with this exception, however, that our judicious caution to 
avoid disease, should always be* equal to our liability to it. 
For instance — when we are in pleasant circumstances, and 
enjoying a cheerful state of mind, all the vital functions of 
the body are performed with increased vigor and elasticity ; 
but when we are suffering grief, or painful anxiety, the func- 
tions are all depressed, and more easily disordered and de- 
ranged ; — hence, substances, which the stomach may receive 
with impunity, if not benefit, in the former state, may cause 



48 

indigestion and disease in the latter :— and therefore, we 
ought always, when oppressed with grief, or any other painful 
affection of the mind, to be more careful to keep up the good 
condition of our digestive organs and skin, by stricter pro- 
priety of diet, and by washing, friction and exercise, than 
when we are in a healthy and cheerful state of mind. And 
this is entirely true in regard to all other causes, circumstan- 
ces and influences, which depress the vital functions of the 
body ; — and peculiarly so in relation to the Epidemic Chol- 
era. 

.Cleanliness of person, at all times highly conducive to 
health and comfort, is of the utmost importance, as a preven- 
tive of Cholera. During the prevalence of this disease, ev- 
ery thing tends to depress the functions of the depurating or- 
gans, and to render the purification of the blood less com- 
plete, and consequently, to predispose the system to disease. 
And when it is considered that the skin, in a healthy state, 
throws off, in the form of insensible perspiration, a large pro- 
portion of the impurities and effete matter of the blood, the 
importance of keeping it clean and invigorating it by friction, 
cannot be doubted ; and more especially when it is consider- 
ed that the digestive organs partake of the general condition, 
and sympathize with the affections of the skin. 

If as I have endeavored to show, and as I fully believe, 
the Epidemic Cholera may be originated in any place where 
circumstances are favorable for it ; and if the action of the 
disease thus originated, may in consequence of filth, and con* 
fined and impure air, generate an infection which may be- 
come powerfully and extensively malignant and fatal, — then 
surely a clean and airy habitation, and street, and city x are 
also of exceedingly great importance, as preventives of this 
horrid disease. But this is a point of such obvious moment, 
that I need only to suggest it to reflecting minds. 

Exercise, of a proper character, and as often as may be 
prudently, in the open air, is another preventive, which must 
not be neglected. By it, the circulation, and especially in 
the capillary vessels, is increased and invigorated ; a greater 
determination to the surface is caused ; respiration and insen- 
sible perspiration become more full and free ; the blood is 
more thoroughly purified and a larger portion of the oxygen 
of the atmosphere is digested and incorporated with the blood, 
increasing its vital energy and stimulating power; the or- 
gans are strengthened, and all their functions are more vigo- 
rously performed, and the tone of health, throughout the 
whole system, is improved ; and thus the vital power of the • 



49 

body to maintain health and resist the action of noxious and 
pestilential agents, is greatly increased. 

A free intercourse with pure air, is of indispensable im- 
portance to health and comfort at all times, and more espe- 
cially, during the prevalence of epidemic disease. Not only 
should every individual have access to pure air, if possible ; 
but every house, and particularly the sleeping. rooms, should 
be well ventilated daily ; and the beds and bedclothes should 
be thoroughly aired before the beds are made in the morning, 
that the. impurities which they have imbibed from the body 
•during the night, may pass off. 

It is also of the utmost importance that the natural appe- 
tites should be strictly regulated^ and always kept in subor- 
dination to enlightened reason and moral propriety. These 
appetites are wisely and benevolently implanted in our na- 
tures, for the preservation -of our lives, aud for the continua- 
tion of our species; and when their exercise and indulgence 
are kept strictly within the range of- their constitutional de- 
sign, they contribute to our health, and are the rudimental 
sources of a very large amount of human enjoyment. 

But when, disregarding the. constitutional laws on which 
they were established, and the' great ends for which they 
were instituted, we yield to an excess of their indulgence 
and make sensual gratifications a principalobject of our pur- 
suits, and source of our enjoyment, they inevitably become 
the agents of disease and suffering to us ; and always in pro- 
portion to. the importance of the end for which they were im- 
planted, and the extent to which their indulgence* has trans- 
gressed the constitutional laws of propriety. Accordingly, 
we find that, in the whole career of the Epidemic Cholera, 
dietetic intemperance and lewdness have been the grand pur- 
veyors to its devastating rage. In every country, the drunk- 
en and the lewd have fallen almost by hundreds and by 
thousands before this terrible destroyer! — We are informed, 
that out of fourteen hundred lewd women in one street in 
Paris, thirteen hundred died of cholera ! In a single house, 
sixty of these Wretched creatures perished by this disease. 

There is one poinf, however, connected with this general 
fact, which deserves more particular attention, as it has, I 
conceive, led to an erroneous, and to some extent, dangerous 
inference and conclusion. It is well known to those who 
have attended to the subject, that excessive indulgence in 
lewdness exceedingly debilitates the organs and general pow- 
ers of the body, but the principle upon which this debility is 
induced is not generally so well understood. Simple debility 



50 

has therefore been regarded as a predisposing cause of chol- 
era, in these unhappy creatures ; and hence the general doc- 
trine has been set up, that debility, by whatever cause, or in 
whatever manner induced, always predisposes to the Cholera ; 
and hence, again, the still more pernicious doctrine, that "a 
generous system of diet," (including a free use of animal 
food, and of wine, and even of brandy), is the best preven- 
tive of the cholera. Thus one error springs from another, 
until there is a result of the most disastrous consequences to 
society, and then we begin to open our eyes to investigate the 
cause; but unhappily, we are too generally satisfied with rid- 
ding ourselves of the immediate iticonvenience, without ever 
pushing our inquiries to the generating principle; and con- 
sequently, we continue on with no. other real relief from the 
evil, than that which is found in a change of its mode or type. 

In regard to the case of lewd women, two important facts 
are to be noticed. In the first place, ninety-nine hundredths 
of those unfortunate creatures, are excessive in their use of 
intoxicating substances; and such is the inactivity and indo- 
lence and irregularity of their habits, that these substances 
are exceedingly efficacious in destroying their constitutions. 
In the second place, the debility induced by excessive lewd- 
ness, is always far more the result of excessive excitement 
and irritation than of any other cause ; and the alimentary 
canal is almost invariably the very first to suffer from these 
irritations, and to be brought into a state of debility, morbid 
irritability, and even inflammation ; and not unfrequently, 
the very worst forms of gastritis and enteritis are induced by 
excesses of this kind. This species of debility, though differ- 
ently induced, constitutes the obnoxious predicament of that 
class of sufferers, concerning whom so much is said about 
their "meagre diet.* 3 It ought to be known that muscular 
debility of the voluntary organs, and functional debility in 
the organs concerned in the general office of nutrition, are by 
no means identical. It is often the case, that the very means 
by which we diminish the muscular power of the voluntary 
organs, increases the vital powers in the nerves of organic 
life, on which the body depends for its ability to resist the ac- 
tion of noxious agents. It is therefore true that the vital 
power of the body to resist the action of noxious agents, may 
be much greater in a delicate female of little muscular pow- 
er, than it is in a man of much greater muscular power. 

It may therefore be laid down as a safe doctrine, that that 
debility which results from excitement and irritation, whether 
caused by lewdness, artificial stimuli, or any other means ? ex«» 



51 

poses the system to the attacks of cholera and other diseases] 
while, on the other hand, simple debility, not resulting from 
any of those causes which also induce a morbid excitability 
and irritability, — but constitutional, or caused by judicious 
bleeding, (if any thing might render it necessary), or by a reg- 
ular course of abstemiousness, is almost infinitely more safe 
than that condition of the body which is produced by what is 
called " a generous system of diet." 

But it is not only the openly intemperate and the illicit, 
that injure themselves by their improper indulgences. No 
forms of civil law, or institutions of society, can save us from 
the evils which result from transgressing the constitutional 
laws of our nature. All excesses, therefore, beyond the real 
wants of our system, and purposes of our organization, — and 
equally when committed within or without the pale of civil 
institutions — are dangerous to our bodily health and exist- 
ence. Even things which in themselves are good and law- 
ful when properly used, are, in their excesses, dangerous. 
The healthiest food which man can eat, may, by excess, be- 
come the cause of disease and death. 

Every appetite and every passion should therefore be held 
in strict subjection to enlightened reason and moral proprie- 
ty, if we would not increase our liability to be attacked by 
this terrible disease. A single paroxysm of anger has. been 
known to cause the most violent and even fatal bilious colic, 
and to bring on suddenly a severe attack of spasmodic chol- 
era ; and however modified in its degree, this passion never 
fails to disturb the digestive organs, and always tends to pro- 
duce a morbid irritability of the nerves of organic life, and 
derangement of the stomach and liver; and when frequent 
and violent, it often brings on inflammation of these organs. 

Of the effects of fear in predisposing the body to attacks 
of cholera, I have already spoken at large. This is the more 
dangerous, from its being, more than any other, an involunta- 
ry passion. Still, however, though we may not be able to 
suppress it entirely, we can do much to modify its action and 
to counteract its effects. We cannot, therefore, be too deep- 
ly impressed with the importance of being on our guard in 
this respect ; for there is not a single premonitory symptom, 
if indeed there is a single symptom or effect, in the whole 
range of this disease, from its commencement to its termina- 
tion in death, which may not be produced by fear; and espe- 
cially if, as is almost universally the case at such times, fear 
leads to the free use of the violent preventives and remedies 
prdinarily prescribed. 



52 

During the prevalence of the epidemic spotted fever in New 
England, as I have before remarked, hundreds perished in 
this way ; and instances were known in which, not only del- 
icate and excitable females, hut the' most robust men, and 
evep physicians, fell prostrate and almost lifeless, with all the 
apparent symptoms of a violent attack of. that disease; but 
which, according to their own subsequent confession, was 
entirely the effect of fear; and had brandy and laudanum, 
in the enormous quantities then usually administered in such 
cases, been poured down their throats, they would inevitably 
have perished, as hundreds of others did, not with the spot- 
ted -fever, but from overwhelming fear, and destructive quan- 
tities of brandy and laudanum. In this manner, beyond a 
question, thousands, if not millions of human beings have 
perished, during the prevalence of the present epidemic. 

Indeed, were I disposed to try the horrid experiment, I am 
confident that with the entire command of the press, and ac- 
quiescence of the physicians, druggists, Stc.&c, I could pro- 
duce five thousand cases of cholera, in the city of New York, 
in one week, — one half, at least, of which, would prove fatal; 
and as little do. I doubt, that if the cholera appears and pre- 
vails in this city, these agencies will, in no small degree, con- 
tribute, to the calamitous result, even with the best intentions. 

It has been well said, that evils irremediable are best un- 
known ; and were the doctrine of fear inevitable in its con- 
sequences, the public announcement of it would be worse 
than cruel ; for it would be only aggravating, in the highest 
degree, the very evil which is deprecated. And from the 
manner in. which some physicians have treated the subject, 
in regard to the epidemic cause, and the effects of fear, the 
most painful consequences have resulted. It is, indeed, like 
taking children into a dark room, where nothing can be seen, 
and where the excited imagination is left to shadow forth the 
most horrid images, and solemnly telling them, that a hideous 
monster is in the room which has destroyed thousands of 
children, and will very probably attack them ; and few at- 
tacked by him -ever -escaped ;— how this monster moves — in 
what direction and manner he will come, and at what mo- 
ment he will attack them, no one can tell ; nor can any one 
tell how they can avoid him :■ — but they must not be afraid of 
him in the least ; for if they are afraid of him, he will surely 
destroy them;* nor must they hope to run away from him, 
for by such an attempt they might run directly into his open 
throat! or when they least expected it„he might suddenly 
pounce down upon them from above. They must therefore 



53 

stand still in thick darkness, and listen to all the terrible ao 
counts of his havoc, and with perfect calmness await his mys- 
terious approach* 

The view which I have taken of the general subject before 
us, presents this matter in a very different light, and renders 
it exceedingly important that it should be universally under* 
stood. For, while we are taught that fear increases our 
danger, we are also taught how it increases it, and therefore, 
how we can, to a great extent, if not entirely, counteract its 
effects. We see that fear seldom causes death directly, by 
its own overwhelming and exclusive power, excepting in 
those whose vital energies have previously been reduced very 
low by ruinous excesses or disease. We learn how it dis- 
turbs and depresses the functions of life, and are taught how 
to counteract these effects by diet, exercise, cleanliness, em- 
ployment, &c. And we learn, also, that fear may excite in 
our morbid' sensibilities, and sympathies, most, if not all of 
what are called the premonitory symptoms, and therefore, we 
are warned against flying to the use of medicine for every 
pain or spasm we may feel, and taught that we must not pre- 
scribe for ourselves, except the simple regimen which I have 
pointed out, unless there is the most decided evidence of dis- 
ease : nor even then, if we can obtain the timely advice of a 
judicious and skilful physician, or some other intelligent per- 
son, whose judgment is undisturbed by our fears. 

Writers in Paris inform us, that almost every body in that 
city, has more or less of the premonitory symptoms of chol- 
era, and therefore it is inferred that the epidemic cause is at- 
mospheric : but it ought to be known that such a state of 
things may be produced by panic alone, without the action 
of any other cause ; and, therefore, men "ought not rashly to 
increase the horrors of this disease, by throwing the awful- 
ness of mystery over the public mind. 

Finally, in regard to the mind and passions, we ought to 
endeavor to maintain the utmost composure and serenity : and 
happy is that man who has that peace with God, which will 
enable him at all times, even in the hour of imminent peril, 
to cast himself upon the protection of his heavenly Father, 
with sustaining confidence. 

Did. 

On the subject of diet, in relation to cholera, 1 have already 
said much ; but a correct system of diet is of so much import- 
5 



54 

ance as a preventive, that I consider it necessary to enter still 
Farther into its details. ' 

One great truth in regard to this subject should be con- 
stantly held in view. If the alimentary-canal, with its func- 
tions, be not, by natural and proper means, kept in- a healthy 
and vigorous state, the health of the body cannot long be pre- 
served. — As I have already remarked; almost all the habits 
and customs of civic life tend to debilitate the stomach and 
intestines, and to impair their functions. The artificial modes 
of preparing food, and especially the pernicious compounds 
atid concentrations, are among the powerful means by which 
debility, indigestion, and habitual costiveness and diarrhoea 
are induced. 

It ought ever to be remembered, that the human stomach 
and intestines are so constructed and adapted to their con- 
stitutional purposes^ that there is between them and the food 
intended for them, fixed laws of relation, and these laws ex- 
tend to the quality, quantity, and condition of the -food ; and 
all violations of them must inevitably result in injury to the 
organs, and through them to the whole system which depends 
upon them for nourishment. Accordingly it has been fully 
demonstrated by the practical experience of all the genera- 
tions of mankind, and by the most extensive and accurate ex- 
periments of science, that, when by artificial means, the sim- 
ple, nutritious properties are separated from any article of 
food, and habitually used for any considerable time in the 
concentrated form, the stomach and intestines are debilitated, 
and their functions are impaired, and finally destroyed, un- 
less the full effect is in some degree prevented by the use of 
some counteracting article of food at the same time. The 
potato, for instance, contains a certain proportion of nutri- 
tious matter : If the potato be well-grown, and properly pre- 
pared, it is a very healthy article of diet, and constitutes the 
principal subsistence of thousands of healthy and robust hu- 
man beings : but if the nutritious matter should be artificial- 
ly separated out, and given, however abundantly, to these 
same people, instead of the whole substance of the potato, 
their digestive organs would soon become debilitated, and 
lose their functional power; and their bodies would become 
weak and emaciated, and die. 

The same is true of wheat, and all other kinds of proper 
food. Put any number of the healthiest and rftost athletic 
men on a diet of the very best superfine flour bread and wa- 
ter, and they could not very long survive. Debilityof the 
alimentary canal, indigestion, costiveness, or alternate costive- 



55 

ness and diarrhoea, would ensue ; resulting in enunciation, 
general debility, and death. But if an equal number of men, 
of like character and circumstances, be at the same time put 
upon a diet of water and good bread, made of good unbolt- 
ed wheat meal, coarsely ground, their digestive organs will 
continue in the most healthy and vigorous condition, and the 
functions of the stomach and intestines will be regularly and 
healthfully performed, unless some other distinct and inde- 
pendent cause induces disorder. For a short time at first, 
these men may feel a sense of debility and lassitude from the 
absence of a more stimulating diet, to which they have been 
accustomed ; but this will soon pass away, and then they will 
begin to feel strong, and sprightly, and cheerful. 

This- has been repeatedly demonstrated on the most exten- 
sive scale of experiment. The British army of more than 
eighty thousand men, according to the united testimony of 
all its officers and physicians, was relieved from almost every 
species of disease, and brought into a state of unusual 
health, by using bread made of coarse, unbolted wheat meal, 
for two years, near the close of the last century. 

A gentleman from St. Croix informs me that the soldiers 
upon that island are usually furnished with bread made of un- 
bolted meal, and that they are, ordinarily very healthy;, but 
that, a few years since, their usual supplies failing, and super- 
fine flour, from the United States, being very cheap, the sol- 
diers were furnished with fine bread, instead of the coarse. 
They did very well on this for a short time, but soon began 
to be less healthy, and after a while many of them began to 
sicken and die. This excited much surprise on the part of 
the government, and led to the frequent inquiry, — How can 
this be ? — The soldiers are now better fed — furnished with 
better bread than ever before, and yet they were never so 
sickly as now. This state of things continued until the sol- 
diers, were again regularly supplied with the coarse bread, 
when they soon began to improve in health, and in 'a few 
months became as healthy as", they were before the fine bread 
was introduced ; and this result dispelled the mystery of their 
■ sickness. 

A very intelligent sea. captain of thirty years' experience in 
marine life, assured me he had always found that his men 
were much healthier and more active and vigorous, when they 
were fed on sea bread made of -coarse meal, than when they 
used that which was made of fine flour. Old whalemen de- 
clare that they always feel better and more vigorous and 
cheerful when they eat coarse bread than when they eat fin e. 



56 

I might go on and Adduce facts by the hour to corroborate 
this doctrine : but it is not necessary ; it is so evidently and 
incontestably true, that none but the culpably ignorant and 
wickedly perverse will contradict it. 

Bread is decidedly the most important article of artificially 
prepared food used by civilized man ; and so intimately is it 
connected with the corporeal and moral and intellectual in- 
terest of the human species, that it is scarcely possible to 
give too much attention to its kind and quality. The per- 
nicious effects of superfine flour bread, in society, are con- 
siderably modified, and in some degree counteracted by oth- 
er articles of food used with it ; but still the evils resulting 
from the use of such bread, and especially when eaten fresh 
and warm, are vastly greater and more numerous than is gen- 
erally supposed. 

If you would have bread which will in the highest degree 
contribute to your health and comfort, and prevent disease, 
you must take particular pains to procure the best of wheat, 
' and have it thoroughly cleansed, and ground coarse, without 
bolting ; and then have your meal, with sweet, lively yeast, 
made into light, sweet, well baked bread, which should be 
kept till it is at least twelve hours old, before it is eaten ; and 
a greater age would be better. 

If you will trust the public bakers to do all this for you,- 
you may, and you may not be well served. I do not suppose 
they are worse than other men, but they make bread and sell 
it for the profits of the business, and not for the sake of pro- 
moting your health ; and if they can increase their profits by 
using an inferior kind of meal, they will be very unlike most 
other men, if they do not do so. Your only security, there- 
fore, is in making your own bread; for however honest and 
faithful the public bakers may be, their best bread is far in- 
ferior to the best domestic bread, and decidedly less whole- 
some. But whether you use the baker's bread or that which 
is made in your own house, you cannot be too careful to 
have it sweet, light, and well baked ; and of sufficient age 
before it is eaten. Heavy, sour, or musty bread, should by 
no means be eaten. 

There is no article of artificially prepared food known in 
civic life, the use of which more invigorates the alimentary 
canal, and restores and keeps up the regular and healthful 
functions of the stomach and intestines, than the bread 
which I now recommend. Unless counteracted by the con- 
comitant use of the most pernicious articles, or by indul- 
gence in the worst of habits, it will relieve Jn a natural, and 



57 

therefore, the only proper manner, the most inveterate cos- 
tivene,ss, and habitual diarrhoea. In short, nothing is in it- 
self more easy to digest, nor more healthfully and powerfully 
assists the stomach to digest other articles of food : while at 
the same time, it is one of the most nutritious and salutary 
articles received into the human stomach. 

I have frequently heard individuals complain of this bread, 
but I have, in every instance, been able, on examination, to 
trace the evils complained of to other causes entirely distinct 
from the bread. We are .told, however, that it is too relax- 
ing to be safely used during the prevalence of the cholera. 
But the objection is founded in utter ignorance of the true 
principles concerned in the case.. It will never relax the 
bowels, unless they are in a state in which such a relaxation 
is more healthful for them than otherwise, and then it never 
does it upon a principle which irritates or debilitates them, 
but the contrary ; and the laxness which it produces, is, dur- 
ing the prevalence of the cholera, almost infinitely more safe 
than the constipation which would obtain without it.' In such . 
a time, costiveness must be guarded against with as much 
care as diarrhoea ; but it cannot be habitually relieved by ca- 
thartic medicine without irritating and debilitating the ali- 
mentarv canal, and thus increasing the liability to the dis- 
ease. A single dose of salts, or any other improper or un- 
timely cathartic medicine, may induce an attack. 

From the nature of things, therefore, as well as from the 
most extensive experience and observation, I am fully con- 
vinced that no article of diet can be more safe and salutary, 
under all circumstances in which it is propertouse solid ali- 
ment of any kind, and that none is more conducive to the 
vigor, health, and good order of the alimentary canal; and 
therefore, that none is better calculated to prevent the chol- 
era, than the bread which I now recommend, when of such 
a character and used in such a manner as I have described. 

Objections which evince the most egregious ignorance, or 
stupid imbecility, or base dishonesty, have been raised against 
this bread by some who have happened to be permitted to be 
a discredit to the medical profession ; but happily their influ- 
ence has been too limited to effect any considerable injury. 

Plain, boiled rice, coarse Indian meal hominy, Sec, eaten 
cold, with a very little good molasses or sugar, or with a small 
quantity of good milk, are also excellent articles of diet. 
There are several other farinaceous substances, which, in 
proper conditions and quantities, and at proper times, are 
safe and salutary articles of food : remembering alwavs to 
5* 



58 

avoid the concentrated forms, and unwholesome conditions 
of all articles. If butter is used at all, it should be only the 
very best, and then very sparingly, on cold bread, &-c ; but 
no other grease should by any means be eaten in any form, 
and it is decidedly better to abstain from even this. Pastry 
of every kind should be carefully avoided. The mild fruits 
of the season, such as strawberries, peaches, pears, &c. when 
perfectly ripe, fresh, and sweet, may be eaten as a portion of 
the breakfast and dinner, by those who in all other respects 
conform to the rules which I have laid down : but they must 
not be eaten if they have been prematurely gathered, or have 
become in any degree acid by fermentation. All crude and 
unripe fruits and vegetables, should be avoided during the 
prevalence of the cholera, particularly by citizens who de- 
pend on the markets and the confectionaries for their sup- 
plies, and whose digestive organs are accustomed to flesh, 
and stimulating condiments and drinks. No salt nor shell- 
fish, of any kind, should be eaten : and in this city even 
fresh scale-fish had better be avoided. Lobsters, in particu- 
lar, are among the very worst and most dangerous articles of 
food ; and clams are but little better. 

They who have sanctified themselves from the use of ani- 
mal food of every kind, had by all means better continue to 
do without it. But they who have always accustomed them- 
selves to a free use of flesh, and shall continue to do so up to 
the time of the commencement of the cholera in this city — 
(if such a fearful time shall come !) — if they cannot leave it 
off entirely at once, without feeling the want of it exceeding- 
ly, may eat a little boiled or roasted beef or mutton once a 
day, without any made gravy, and without any seasoning but 
a little salt : and no second course or dessert of puddings, 
pies, fruits, &c. should be taken after it. Soups of every 
kind, and especially flesh soups, should be strictly avoided. 
Flesh soup, at all times bad, is peculiarly pernicious at such 
a time. It is only the concentrated form of some of the nu- 
tritious properties of the flesh, held in solution by the water; 
and when it is introduced into the stomach, the water is 
taken up by the absorbents, and the concentrated properties 
of the flesh, together with the viscious seasonings, are left 
to tantalize, and irritate and debilitate the alimentary canal, 
and thus always predispose to the epidemic cholera. 

All stimulating, heating, and irritating condiments of the 
table, such as the various spices, pepper, mustard, &c. &c. 
&/C. should be carefully avoided. Tea and coffee are de- 
cidedly pernicious to health, and predispose the body to dis- 



59 

ease: they debilitate the alimentary canal, and the nerves of 
organic life generally, and impair digestion and peristaltic 
action ; — -in short, they always diminish the healthy vital 
properties of the tissues on which they act, and become the 
auxiliary and sometimes the principal causes of some of the 
worst and most distressing forms of chronic and acute dis- 
ease ! — If indulged in excessively, they will become power- 
fully predisposing causes of the epidemic disease which is at 
present so much dreaded.* They who can cleanse themselves 
entirely from their use, and recover from the effects of the 
change before the cholera breaks out here, will be far better 
without them : and those who continue to drink them/should 
use them very sparingly. All other narcotic and all alcohol* 
ic substances, such as tobacco, opium, distilled spirits, wine, 
malt liquors, and every other kind and sort, in every form and 
of every quality, should be entirely avoided, with the most 
rigid and inflexible scrupulosity. In short, every thing should 
be carefully avoided which is calculated to irritate, and de- 
bilitate, and inflame the alimentary canal, and through it the 
whole system, and thus certainly predispose the body to the 
cholera, and every other disease ; and sooner or later, if per-» 
severed in, will inevitably develope disease in the system. 

A plain, simple, nourishing vegetable diet is decidedly 
most conducive to permanent health and longevity. It is 
less stimulating, and therefore, does not wear out the suscep- 
tibilities and energies of the living tissues so rapidly, nor does 
it tend so powerfully to produce chronic and acute disease of 
any kind, as a free use of animal food. Hence it is in all 
respects a safer diet, during the prevalence of malignant and 
epidemic diseases, — and especially such as have their seat in 
the alimentary canal. 

Pure water is the only natural and fitting drink for man, 

and perfectly soft water is altogether the best. But in the 

city of New York, where the water is generally exceed- 

i ngly bad, and where pure water cannot always be ob- 

*"I am generally told, that although the first victims of the cholera 
;c are the dissipated, it is not, so much as last year, confined to this class ; 
that the strictly temperate fall before it. I have remarked, however, that 
those considered such are very great consumers of coffee : and whether 
this, with the constant use of tobacco, may not equally dispose the sys- 
tem to its attacks, I am not prepared to say ; but certain I am, that great 
caution is demanded in food and drink, and in every thing that affects 
the condition of the system." — [Letter from Cincinnati, dated June 12, 
1833.] 

Another writer at the same place, and about the same time, says, — 
" The only employment going on here at present, seems to be coffin- 
making, grave-digging, and opium-eating.' ' 



60 

tained, more care should be exercised in regard to the quan- 
tity used ; and during hot weather, and more especially 
during the prevalence of epidemic disease, like the dysen- 
tery, cholera, &>c the utmost caution should be exercised on 
this point. At such times, with a very little trouble'and ex- 
pense, an apparatus might be -fixed in every kitchen, by 
which a sufficient quantity of water can be distilled for the 
drink of the family in a few hours* and this would be the best 
drink they can possibly have ; but if this be deemed imprac- . 
ticable, well filtered rain water from the cistern, if k has not 
stood too long, should be used. At any rate, if it be found 
cessary to use the impure hard water of the city let it be first 
boiled and then suffered to cool, 

But. you reply, that here you are bewildered by contradic- 
tory counsels: — that it has been asserted, that "it is notori- 
ous that the cholera originated, and raged with a mortality 
far exceeding any example in its subsequent progress through 
other climes and- nations, in the centre of India among the 
Hindoos, who live in a great measure upon rice, eat no flesh, 
and are the most temperate people in the world. That the 
moderate enjoyment of all the comforts of life, such as the 
constitution has become accustomed to, so far from predis- 
posing people to the disease, is one of the best preservatives ; 
that the ordinary use of animal food is far better than con- 
fining ourselves entirely to vegetables, with a view of escap- 
ing the disease, or rendering it less malignant. V — Neio York 
Courier $f Enquirer. 

" That the greatest mortality occurred among those whose 
mode of living was particularly meagre and abstemious; that 
cholera made its first appearance at Smyrna among the Jews, 
during one of their fasts, and committed great ravages; and 
that the occasional use of stimuli, in the shape of generous 
wine, brandy, or gin and water, was found highly serviceable 
during the prevalence of the cholera at Constantinople."-— 
Dr. De'Kay's letter to the Evening Post. 

It is a matter of painful regret, that those whose total ig- 
norance of the subject utterly disqualifies them to give an 
opinion where such momentous interests are concerned, 
should have either the officiousness or the means to publish, 
with an imposing air of authority, their gratuitous and erro- 
neous assertions. And it is still more to be regretted that 
those whose professional calling and character ought to enti- 
tle their statements and opinions to respect, should be so in- 
cautious and inaccurate in their publications ; and most es- 
pecially, on occasions like the present, when such publica- 



. 



61 



tions may jeopard, if not destroy, the lives of thousands of 
human beings. 

By carefully examining these assertions which have been 
made concerning the diet of the Hindoos, and others in Asia 
and Europe amongst whom the cholera has committed its 
ravages, we shall find that many of the statements are false 
— that many of the conclusions are erroneous, — and that the 
whole has a very limited bearing on the condition of things 
in the United States. 

That the Hindoos subsist on vegetable food, and eat little 
or no flesh, — and that the cholera commenced, and commit- 
ted great ravages among them, is freely acknowledged. But 
are they " the most temperate people in the world?" The* 
best and most unquestionable authorities on the subject give 
us very different accounts from this. The testimony of med- 
ical and military gentlemen and others, who have travelled 
extensively in India, and resided for years among the people, 
and become well acquainted with their character, habits and 
condition, inform us, that the people of India generally are 
exceedingly indolent, sensual, and licentious. " They eat 
rice" and millet, mixed with sweet-meats, curdled milk, beans, 
and young leaves." But this food they almost universally, 
from ihe oldest to the youngest, and in all conditions of life, 
season very highly with their favorite curry powder; a com- 
position made of cayenne pepper, black pepper, ginger, mus- 
tard, and several other ingredients of a very heating and ir- 
ritating character, calculated to produce the worst disorders 
of the alimentary canal, and consequently, to reduce the vi- 
tal energies of the nerves of organic life, and impair all the 
functions of the system. Beside these stimulants with their 
food, almost every man, woman and child, habitually, and 
often to very great excess, chew a cud composed of opium 
cheenam, or lime and beetle-nut, wrapped up in a sera-leaf 
of very acrid and pungent qualities. Tobacco, one of the 
worst of narcotics, whose effects are exceedingly pernicious 
on the powers and functions of organic life, is in almost uni- 
versal, and generally, excessive use among them ; and a great 
portion of the natives make a free use of arrack ; a very in- 
toxicating, fiery and destructive alcoholic liquor. And yet 
we are told by officious ignorance, that M these are the most 
temperate people in the world." 

Lieut. Colonel James Todd, — than whom no better author- 
ity can be given, in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, 
or the central and western Rajpoot States of India, says, that 
" to Baber, the founder of the Mogul Empire, India is in- 



62 

debted for the introduction of its melons and grapes; and to 
his grandson, for tobacco ; but for the introduction of opium, 
we have no date, and it is not even mentioned in the poems 
of Chund. This pernicious drug has robbed the Rajpoot of 
half his virtues, and while it obscures these, it heightens his 
vices, giving to his natural bravery a character of insane fe- 
rocity, and to the countenance, which otherwise beamed with 
intelligence, an air of imbecility. Like all other stimulants, 
its effects are magical for a time, but the re-action is hot less 
certain : and the faded form or amorphous bulk too often at- 
test the debilitating influence of a drug which alike debases 
mind and body. In the more ancient Epics we find no men- 
tion of the poppy juice, as now used, though the Rajpoot has 
at all times. been accustomed to this intoxicating cup. The 
essence called arrack, whether of grain, of roots, or of flow- 
ers, still welcomes the guest, but is secondary to the opiate. 
To eat opium together, is the most inviolable pledge ; tmd an 
agreement ratified by this ceremony is stronger than any ad- 
juration. If a Rajpoot pays a visit, the first question is, 
- — have you had your opiate.?" • . . 

The Calcutta (India) Gazette, describing the recent cele- 
bration of one of the Hindoo religious festivals, says, — the 
conception of the horrors with which-these ceremonies strike 
every refined heart, is strong in our mind. We see the .ef-. 
feminate lust that inspires the Baboo to bring the first beau- 
ties into his house; we see spirits- and liquors of all sorts 
freely indulged in, and terrible tumults excited b.y their heat ; 
we see excesses of every kind committed without hesitation, 
and boys of very tender age freely allowed to ramble over 
nights and nights, and spend hours and hours in immoral pur 
suits :> — we witness youth .of fourteen or fifteen years old, in- 
dulging to excess in the stupifying and mischievous fumes of 
tobacco and other drugs; we see goats, rams and buffaloes, 
savagely butchered, and men rolling on the ground, be- 
smeared with blood and dirt; and at. the time when the idols 
are thrown into the water, young men-go upon the river with 
their Jewd companions, and revel in- all sorts of licentious- 
ness. In short, if there be any action which is, to the ut- 
most degree, degrading to the dignity of man, and demoral- 
izing to his* mind, it is perpetrated at these holidays. 3 

Mr. Jameson's Bengal Report of the Cholera, stales that 
" two millions' of persons had assembled to celebrate one of 
these religious festivals on the shores of the Ganges ; arrd the 
cholera broke out suddenly amongst them, while at their de- 
votions*, and in eightdays destroyed twenty thousand persons. 



63 

But the pestilence was staid as. soon as the multitude was 
dispersed." 

Besides all these life-destroying causes, "the poor people 
of India, which constitute a large proportion of the popula- 
tion, s-leep in herds upon the ground — on damp mats, and 
under old. sheds, exposed to every wind.'' With such insa- 
tiable desires for stimulation, and such habitual excesses of 
sensuality,, indolence, exposure and filthiness, is it surprising, 
.that the people of India pay Jittle attention to the quality of 
their food ; that they discover great lassitude and imbecility ; 
that they become prematurely old-— or that they generate the 
mogt malignant and fatal diseases ? And yet, it is a most in- 
teresting and. incontrovertible fact, that those natives of this 
same country, who subsist entirely, on a vegetable diet of 
rice and other, nutricious and healthy articles, with water on- 
ly for their .drink, and avoid all artificial stimulants, and all 
sensual excesses, are remarkable for their bodily strength 
and agility, and for their intellectual vigor and vivacity, and. 
for the placidness of their tempers, and purity of their mor- 
als. They live -exempt from disease, and attain to very great 
age. ... 

• The assertion that the a greatest mortality occurred in 
Europe and Asia among those whose mode of living was par- 
ticularly meagre and abstemious : and that cholera made its 
•first appearance among the Jews at Smyrna, during one of 
their fasts, and committed great ravages/' will, however true 
in fact, prove, on examination, to be wholly destitute of truth 
in its bearing on things in this country. 

In the first place, there .is no evidence whatever, that a 
meagre and abstemious diet, separate from filthiness and sen- 
suality, and the use of artificial stimuli, which is habitual, 
and almost universally excessive among the class of people 
alluded to, is in any peculiar degree favorable to the ravages 
of cholera. It is very certain- that a good diet is more salu- 
tary at all times and in all circumstances, than a poor one. 
Nevertheless, the evils to be apprehended from an abstemi- 
ous, and even a meagre diet, with total abstinence from arti- 
ficial stimuli, and with good habits in other respects, are al- 
most infinitely less than would be supposed from the vague 
speculations of superficial observers. A system* which has 
not been debilitated in its functional powers, nor had its 
healthful susceptibilities impaired, by the continued irritations 
of artificial stimuli, and sensual excesses, is in vastly less 
danger from the presence of crude and offensive articles of 
food, in the alimentary canal, than is a system of contrary 



04 

habits and condition. It is therefore yet to be ascertained 
whether the paramount cause of the greater ravages of the 
cholera, '* among those whose mode of living was particu- 
larly meagre and abstemious, " was not their free, if not ex- 
cessive use of artificial stimuli, and their degrading sen- 
suality. 

The interesting and important communication of Doctor 
J. P. Kay, concerning the operatives of Manchester, exhibits 
in a striking manner how all-pervading and all-prevailing 
this diseased love of stimulation is, among the lowest classes 
of human beings, as well as among the higher orders of their 
fellow creatures. And it is admitted that this excessive stim- 
ulation takes hold of these unfortunate creatures with more 
destructive power than it does those whose habits and cir- 
cumstances are, in other respects, much more favorable to 
health. 

In the second place, admitting all these assertions and 
conclusions to be correct, I ask what bearing the reasoning 
has on things in this country ? Is there any portion of our 
whole population in a parallel condition ; except, indeed, that 
miserable class of beings in our large cities and towns whose 
worse than brutal sensuality and vice have sunk them to the 
lowest degree of human degradation; and whose food is mea- 
gre and abstemious only (if so in fact) because their exces- 
sive use of artificial and intoxicating stimuli has destroyed 
both their ability and their desire to procure any thing bet- 
ter ? 

If the statements which I am combating, had been pub- 
lished expressly to bear upon the condition of this wretched 
portion of our population, and to call the attention of the 
public to the importance of endeavoring to remove this state 
of things, the publication would have merited the approba- 
tion of every philanthropist. But when it is considered (as 
beyond a question it is true) that they were published for the 
special purpose of destroying the confidence of the public in 
that system of diet which I have recommended and of en- 
couraging what is called "generous living" which practi- 
cally means, excess of food and stimulation, — the publica- 
tion cannot be too heartily deprecated, nor too severely rep- 
rehended by every one who has a regard for the cause of hu- 
manity and the welfare of society. 

In regard to the Jews of Smyrna, the truth should be ful- 
ly ascertained on several points, before any inference from 
their case is erected into a doctrine. It should be known 
whether they did not habitually and freely use tea, coffee, 



65 

wine, spirits, tobacco, opium, &c. &c. besides the ordinary 
stimulating condiments of the table ; and whether they did 
not, as is known to be the case with others in those parts, on 
such occasions, continue the use, and even in increased 
quantities, of some or all of these stimulants during their 
fast : and whether they did not, at the same time, crowd to- 
gether in large assemblies ; and expose themselves to impure 
air ; and neglect personal cleanliness, and propriety of hab- 
its?* 

But supposing the contrary of all this ; and admitting the 
fact in its full force as stated, what conclusion can be legiti- 
mately drawn from it, except the single one, that abstinence 
from food, for too great a length of time, renders the human 
body more liable to the attack, and less able to endure the 
violence, of the cholera. Now I ask in the name of com- 
mon sense, what analogy of condition there is, between the 
degraded, filthy, grossly sensual and miserably fed popula- 
tion of Asia and Europe, and the inhabitants of this city and 
this country, who are surrounded by abundance — who use 
animal food to excess — and more than nine-tenths of whom 
suffer from over-eating? Or what in the nature of things is 
there to justify the promulgation of the doctrine, that the 
people of the United States — the inhabitants of the city of 
New York — will find greater security from the attacks and 
ravages of the cholera by increasing the proportion of ani- 
mal food in their system of diet, and by " the occasional use 
of stimuli in the shape of generous wine, brandy, or gin and 
water, than they can by a Well-chosen vegetable diet, and a 
total abstinence from all narcotic, alcoholic, and other artifi- 
cial stimulants, and every other pernicious thing which is 
calculated to irritate and inflame the alimentary canal ? 

But it is said that the medical gentleman who advances 
this doctrine has had experience, which is better than the- 
ory, in these matters. And pray what has been his experi- 
ence? — Why, forsooth, he was at Constantinople during the 
prevajence of the cholera in that city, where he followed his 
own system of diet, and took the disease, — and did not die ! 
ergo; "wine, brandy, and gin, were highly serviceable" to 
him ! 

But it happens that other medical gentlemen have had 
some experience in this matter also. Doctor George Betnor 
of our city, was several months in Batavia, in the Island of 

* All that is here suggested as matter of inquiry is now known to be 
actually true. 

6 



66 

Java, when the cholera was committing its terrible ravages 
in that place. He was continually exposed to all the atmos- 
pheric, or whatever external, pestilential causes existed, — 
was out at all hours of day and night — drenched with rain 
and dews, and endured much fatigue and anxiety, yet he took 
neither brandy nor wine, nor animal food to secure him from 
an attack of that fearful disease which he could not help but 
dread. He subsisted entirely on a plain, simple, vegetable 
diet of rice, bananas, and other fruits of the climate, which 
were soft and pulpy, and carefully abstained from all artificial 
stimulants, and he not only had not the slightest symptom of 
cholera, but a*s he assures me, never enjoyed better health 
than he did during his stay on that island. 

The truth is, that mankind generally entertain the most 
egregiously erroneous notions in regard to the comparative 
excellence of animal and vegetable food in sustaining the 
human body in the various circumstances and conditions of 
life. Animal food, I repeat, is more stimulating, and conse- 
quently imparts, for a time, a sense of greater strength, accel- 
erates the functional action, more rapidly exhausts and wears 
out the energies and susceptibilities of the system, tends 
more strongly to chronic and acute disease, — as a general 
rule, abbreviates life — and its absence, in those accustomed 
to the use of it, causes a greater sense of lassitude and de- 
bility. A well-regulated vegetable diet is less stimulating, 
better adapted to the constitution and powers of the human 
organs, and is in every respect more conducive to the health, 
permanent strength, comfort and longevity of the body. 

The celebrated Dr. Jackson, of the British army, declared 
that he had been exposed to all climates, and all vicissitudes 
of weather, and endured all hardships of fatigue and expo- 
sure ; and, that, without the use of any animal food or in- 
toxicating drink, he had worn out two armies in two wars, 
and believed he had stamina of constitution and vigor of 
body enough left, to wear out another army before he was 
old. With the same system of diet, he was enabled, with- 
out the least injury to his health, to endure fatigue and ex- 
posure in the West Indies, which he had before, in common 
with others, believed would prove fatal to any European; and 
he finally came to the confident conclusion, that an army of 
British soldiers, by adopting a similar diet, would be capable 
of going through the severest military duties in the hottest 
islands in the West Indies, with entire safety. 

Howard, the celebrated philanthropist, " in the period of 
sixteen or sev mteen years, travelled between fifty and sixty 



67 

thousand miles, for the sole purpose of relieving the distress- 
es of the most wretched of the human race. The fatigues, 
the dangers, the privations, he underwent or encountered for 
the good of others, were such as no one else was ever exposed 
to, in such a cause, and such as few could have endured. He 
often travelled several nights and days in succession, with- 
out stopping, over roads almost impassable, in weather the 
most inclement, with accommodations the meanest and most 
wretched. Summer and winter, heat and cold, rain and 
snow, in all their extremes, failed alike, to stay him for a 
moment in his course; whilst plague, and pestilence, and 
famine, instead of being evils that he shunned, were those 
with which he was most familiar; and to many of whose hor- 
rors he voluntarily exposed himself: visiting the foulest dun- 
geons, filled with malignant infection, — spending forty days 
in a filthy and infected lazaretto, — plunging into military en- 
campments where the plague was committing its most horrid 
ravages, and visiting where none of his conductors dared to 
accompany him ; " and through all this, he subsisted entirely 
on a most rigidly abstemious, vegetable diet ; carefully avoid- 
ing the use of wine, and all other alcoholic drinks, and ad- 
vising others who were exposed to the plague, to abstain en- 
tirely from the use of animal food. " The abstemious diet, 
which, at an early period of his life, he adopted from a regard 
to his health, he afterwards continued and increased in its rig- 
or, from principle, and from choice, as well as from a convic- 
tion of the great advantages which he derived from it :" and, 
after all his experience, near the close of his life, he made the 
following record in his diary : " I am firmly persuaded, as to 
the health of our bodies, that herbs and fruits will sustain 
nature in every respect, far beyond the best flesh. " Yet after 
all, there is every reason to believe that this good man fell a 
victim to his free use of tea. Substituting its deleterious 
stimulation for the sustaining nourishment of food, he rushed, 
with the utmost temerity, into the presence of the greatest 
danger, when his body, by fatigue, cold, wet and exhaustion, 
was wholly unprepared to resist the virulent action of ma- 
lignantly noxious agents, and then neglected the early symp- 
toms of disease in his system, and perseveringly refrained 
from any efficient means of restoration. 

To one who has any just knowledge of the nature of things 
in regard to himself, it would hardly seem necessary to of- 
fer a single argument to prove that a well-chosen vegetable 
diet is, at all times, and under all circumstances, best adapted 
to the nature and wants of the human body, and that in times 



of prevailing and malignant epidemics especially, no other 
diet can be so well calculated to preserve the health of the 
body, and enable it to resist the causes of disease. 

But why, then, I am frequently asked, did Paris suffer so 
much more by the cholera than London ? — Permit me to re- 
mark, that although the evidences in relation to a doctrine 
of truth may not always be obvious, yet it is not prudent to 
come to the hasty conclusion, that, therefore, the doctrine is 
not true. On subjects which are connected with so much 
excitement and dubiousness as that which is now under con- 
sideration, a thousand circumstances and apparent facts con-* 
cur to mislead the reasoner, who considers himself purely 
inductive. — At such a distance as we are from London and 
Paris, and depending as we do for information on such vague 
conjectures, such exaggerations of excitement, such distor- 
tions of prejudice, and such ex parte views and testimonies, 
it is impossible for us to investigate the subject with that sat- 
isfaction to ourselves, and with that accuracy of conclusion, 
which we should be capable of, wtre we fully and intimately 
acquainted with the real nature, condition, and circumstan- 
ces, of things in the two cities. Nevertheless, there are some 
well-known facts in the case, which will greatly assist us in 
the solution of the interesting question. 

Whatever may be the difference between the English and 
French in the kinds of their diet, it is pretty certain that the 
English people generally, have greatly the advantage of the 
French, in regard to the condition of their food. That is, 
the English, I believe, are far more simple and natural in the 
culinary preparations of their food. Their beef, and other 
flesh — their potatoes and other vegetables, with whatever else 
constitutes their fare, are cooked and served up in a more 
simple and natural state, as separate dishes : — while the 
French delight in mixtures, and compounds, and concentra- 
tions, with abundance of condiments. To roast a piece of 
beef, and boil a potato, turnip, &c. whple, and sit down and 
masticate them well before they are swallowed into the stom- 
ach, is incomparably more healthy and invigorating to the 
alimentary canal, than to take all of these articles and mix 
them together, and stew them down into a thick soup, and 
eat them with little, or no mastication :— In fact it may be 
laid down as an axiom in the science of human life, that all 
proper solid food which is received into the mouth in a con- 
dition that requires and receives the most perfect mastica-* 
tion, is most conducive to the health and vigor of the ali- 
mentary canal, and the integrity of its function^ AU soups. 



as I have before remarked, and more especially those which 
contain only the concentrated properties of nourishment, are 
calculated to debilitate and disorder the digestive organs. 

The comparative degree of excess, in the use of artificial 
stimuli, by the citizens of London and of Paris, it would be 
very difficult for us to ascertain. It has been a favorite doc- 
trine with some of our wine-loving countrymen, and one 
which they have zealously endeavored to promulgate, that in 
wine countries there is little, or no intemperance, in the use 
of intoxicating liquors. But this is altogether erroneous. 
The excesses in Paris, according to the number of the popu- 
lation, are at least equal and probably much greater than in 
London. An American gentleman in Paris, writing to this 
country on the subject of the cholera, says, " Narrow damp 
streets, houses that are dripping half the time in wet weath- 
er, cold floors, excessive dirt, and drunkenness, of which 
you have no conception in America, are the causes why the 
disease has been so bad here. There are perhaps one hun- 
dred thousand souls in Paris that are intoxicated more or less, 
once or twice a week, and in this class the mortality has been 
fearful."* 

For excessive lewdness, which is another most powerful, 
predisposing cause of cholera, Paris has long been exceed- 
ingly notorious; and we learn that it is among the unfortu- 
nate citizens of that character, that the disease has commit- 
ted its most terrible ravages. The French ministerial pa- 
pers inform us that, " in the year 1831, no less than 10,000 
children were born out of wedlock, in the city of Paris; and 
that 7,749 of these were abandoned by their wicked and un- 
natural parents, to the horrors of destitution, or the chance 
of compassion by the passers by." It is also a matter of 

♦ "The Police reports reveal the fact that 25,702 drunkards were, 
committed to prison in Paris, in the course of the year. Heaven only 
knows how many walk free. Of this number, 10,290 were women! 
Now all this has nothing to do with the soldiers or the invalids who are 
under military law. It is probable that ten thousand drunkards died here 
with the cholera last year. I rarely go into the streets without seeing 
more or less drunkards, 1 have no doubt there are quite as many gen- 
teel young men addicted to drunkenness in Paris, as in New York, 
though they are less seen in public. The police here is far from being 
rigid with drunkards, for I see them staggering about the streets every 
day unmolested. The drunkards committed at Paris, (for their drunk- 
enness), are at the rate of seventy a day. Add to this, the soldiers of 
the garrison, the invalids, &c. and you will probably get double the num- 
ber. J. FENIMORE COOPER."^ 

Paris, April 20, 1833. 

6* 



- 70 

common observation, that the lower and middling classes in 
Paris are by no means remarkable for their personal and do- 
mestic cleanliness ; and we are told that no small portion of 
the lower class are exceedingly filthy. 

But there are other facts of equal, if not more importance 
in their bearing on this subject. For a considerable time be- 
fore the cholera appeared in London, great and somewhat 
extensive efforts had been made, in the Temperance cause, 
against the use of all intoxicating liquors : and when the ter- 
rible disease was believed to be approaching that city, every 
laudable measure was taken to spread over the whole pop- 
ulation a solemn impression that every drinker of strong 
drink and every one given to excess must expect to fall a 
sure victim to the cholera. Handbills advertising this were 
posted up in every part of the city, and newspapers reiterat- 
ed the warning in every quarter; and no medical gentleman 
came out with his professional advice, against the warning; 
no physician renowned for his experience and knowledge of 
the disease, publicly recommended the use of " generous 
wine, and brandy, and gin." The happy consequence was, 
that there was, as with one consent, a simultaneous pause of 
indulgence in all classes of society. The rich and the no- 
ble cut short their excesses of the table ; the wine and strong- 
drink bibber listened to the solemn remonstrance, and set 
down his intoxicating cup untasted, or, at least, undrained, 
and folded his arms in the coolness of rational reflection. 
Finding the city in this condition and attitude of resistance, 
the Destroyer sprinkled his wrath on a few unguarded wretch- 
es, and turned away to gather his energies into a fiercer 
shower of death over a more devoted metropolis. 

But Paris had known no efforts in the Temperance cause ! 
No warning voice of humanity had advertised the heedless 
multitude that there was death in their indulgence. And, 
worse than all, the Prefect of the Police caused to be posted 
up and widely circulated, instructions to the people, among 
which were, " Let your food be principally flesh and flesh 
soups. Instead of drinking pure water, it will be better to 
mix in it two tea-spoonfuls of brandy to a pint. Water light- 
ly mixed with wine is equally good." This was truly unfor- 
tunate advice ; to say nothing of the flesh, which was decid- 
edly and extremely bad, the flesh soup was one of the worst 
articles of diet that could have been prescribed. The rea- 
sons I have already stated. * 

*Dr. D. F. Condie, who was principal physician to one of the Chole- 
ra Hospitals in Philadelphia, informed me in May last, that " It was 



71 

But what shall we say of the brandy and wine prescrip- 
tions? I know that the same set of instructions told the 
people that " the excessive use of strong liquors ivas very per- 
nicious;" and that " taking unmixed brandy when fasting, 
was equally so ; and therefore, if persons were in the habit of 
taking unmixed brandy, they must at least eat apiece of 
bread" But there is a fatal recognition of the doctrine, 
that a little alcohol is better than none, as a preventive ! And 
who, under the bewildering hallucinations of panic, and es- 
pecially if incited by the power of appetite, will be careful 
to take his tea-spoon, and measure with precision his pre- 
scribed allowance of brandy 1 Will it not rather be said, 
" if two tea-spoonfuls will be good surely four will be bet- 
ter 1 " Will not the people go on in this way, from four tea- 
spoonfuls to a wine-glass ; and from that to a gill ; and from 
that to a half pint ; according as their systems shall suffer 
from the reaction of their stimulation, and feel the want of 
the stimulus to bring up the tone? 

This was, in fact, precisely the case in Paris. " A gener- 
ous diet of flesh, and wine, and brandy, " became the popu- 
lar doctrine of conservation, and for awhile was believed to 
constitute an insuperable barrier, over which the " vulgar 
disease" could not lift its destroying energies; and behind 
which, he that was able to erect it, might stand in safety, and 
laugh at the storm that was raging below him ; or, for his 

now satisfactorily ascertained, that one of the principal predisposing and 
exciting causes of cholera in the Arch street prison of Philadelphia, last 
season, where, for a short time, it committed such shocking ravages, 
was the precautionary measure of the Inspectors, in raising the diet of the 
prisoners, by an increase of flesh, flesh soup, and porter." 

Dr. D. M. Rees, of Xew York, whose practice and success in the Chol- 
era last summer, were at least equal to any other physician's in that 
city, informed me last November, that when the Cholera broke out 
there, and he was called to practise among it, he found that the disease 
was making its greatest ravages among the excessive flesh-eaters, and 
that he consequently went home and requested his family to abstain en- 
tirely from the use of flesh during the continuance of the epidemic in 
the city ; and that he and his family subsisted wholly on a milk and veg- 
etable diet, while the cholera prevailed, without having any thing of the 
disease, — excepting in one instance, near the close of the sickness, when 
Mrs. R. without his knowledge partook of flesh, and in a few hours af- 
ter was taken with diarrhoea, and other " premonitory symptoms." 
He also stated to me, that so far as he had an opportunity among the 
families in which he usually practised, he advised them to be very spar- 
ing in the use of flesh, or abstain entirely from it, while the cholera pre- 
vailed ; and that so far as they conformed to his advice, they wholly es- 
caped the disease. 

August, 1833. 



72 

amusement, ludicrously masquerade the dismay, and ago- 
nies, and convulsive sufferings of the " vulgar herd." 

But the respectable citizens of Paris little thought that 
their "generous diet" whieh they deemed their bulwark of 
security, would prove the very means by which the " ignoble 
disease" would be enabled to elevate his enginery of death 
to a level with their own breasts ! — Nevertheless, the conse- 
quences were inevitable 1 Excessess in eating and drinking, 
were as universal in Paris, as the means of indulgence; and 
thus, the higher classes of society brought themselves, in li- 
ability to the disease, on to the level with " the herd" whose 
sufferings they had treated with sneering commisseration, and 
compassionate ridicule. And the gay and reckless Parisians 
were the first to learn, and to demonstrate to the terrified 
world, that the cholera was not confined, in its w r ork of death, 
to the destitute, the miserable, and the abandoned : — but it 
had the audacity to fold, in its unclean embrace, even per- 
sons of titled rank and distinction, and to breathe its pesti- 
lential breath into the very atmosphere that surrounded the 
throne ! 

While the higher classes of society were thus working out 
their destruction with eagerness and sensuality, the lower 
orders were crowding together in immense mobs, and giving 
themselves up to passion, and riot, and outrage, and every 
species of excess; and, at the same time, propriety of food, 
and cleanliness, and purity of air, and timely rest, and all 
salutary rules of prudence, were utterly neglected. Is it 
surprising, that in such a state of things, the cholera should 
slay its thousands in Paris? — But if the view which I have 
taken of this question is correct, then London owes her im- 
munity to causes depending on the voluntary conduct of her 
citizens ; and therefore should be exceedingly cautious how 
she trusts to any local or external causes for exemption, — lest, 
in the moment of supposed security, she yields to excesses 
of indulgence, and brings back the destroyer upon her, in a 
hurricane of wrath and vengeance. 

The absurdities into which mankind are ever precipitating 
themselves, would justify the conclusion, that there is not, in 
human nature, any inherent appetite nor aptitude for truth. 
Let sufficient obscurity shroud the objects of our contempla- 
tion, to render it possible for the imagination to predominate 
over perception, and be assured, our mystery and marvel lov- 
ing propensity will lead us to body forth the most absurd, if 
not the most ridiculous forms of conjecture. We find this 
principle strikingly illustrated in the vague and whimsical 



73 

speculations of the Spanish physicians, on the question un- 
der consideration. They are asked why the cholera prevails 
so much more extensively and fatally in Paris than in London. 
They gravely set themselves about the solution of the ques- 
tion, and finally come to the sapient conclusion, that " the 
general and constant use of tea, by the English, saved them 
from the severity with which the disease attacked the 
French ; and therefore they recommend the use of tea as a 
specific against the violence of the cholera." 

So far as tea prevents the use of alcohol, whether in the 
form of brandy, or the wines of France and Spain, it un- 
questionably prevents the violence of the cholera : or, at 
least, by so much as it is less pernicious than brandy, wine, 
&>c. But to suppose that the constant use of a stimulating 
narcotic like tea, which invariably diminishes the vital prop- 
erties of the living tissues on which it acts, always debilitat- 
ing the stomach, impairing its digestive powers, and causing 
an increased irritability in the nerves of organic life, through- 
out the whole system, — to suppose that this is absolutely, in 
any degree a specific against the violence of the cholera, is 
an absurdity which would be disreputable to the empirics of 
the nursery. 

It is very certain that the sour wines which are so habitu- 
ally — so universally, and so abundantly used in Paris as a 
common beverage, predispose the body to the cholera far 
more than the weak tea generally used in England. But pure 
water, in reasonable quantities, is an infinitely better substi- 
tute for such wines than tea, or any other alcoholic or nar- 
cotic drink. 

From the view which I have taken of the whole subject 
before us, we see that the hue and cry which has been raised 
about a " meagre diet/' has no bearing whatever, on that 
system of diet which,! have recommended in my public lec- 
tures. 

The inhabitants of this land of abundance— excepting the 
miserable and degraded votaries of base sensuality and vice, 
which constitute the dregs of our cities — are at all times in 
incomparably greater danger, from an excessive, than from a 
meagre diet. And I repeat the assertion with confidence, — 
that, however meagre the diet, so that the articles of food 
are not intrinsically deleterious, and actual inanition and 
starvation are not caused, — if the habits and circumstances, 
in all other respects, correspond strictly with the laws of or-* 
ganic life, — comparatively little is to be feared from disease, 
and especially from the cholera. The advice to the people 
qf this country, and particularly to the citizens of New Yorkj 



74 

to increase the proportion of flesh and flesh-soup in their di- 
et, as a means of preventing the attacks of the cholera, is 
therefore decidedly uncalled for, — unjustifiable and improper. 

But the most rash and fatally erroneous advice which has 
been published in this city, is that which prescribes "gener- 
ous wine, brandy and gin/ as preventives of the cholera. 
Depend upon it, the worst of consequences will ensue ! — It 
is in vain that the author has subjoined his caution against 
intemperance. Every man will judge for himself, of the sig- 
nification of the term, in relation to his own quantity and 
circumstances and wants! And who does not know, that 
even he who drinks his quart of brandy a day, never be- 
lieves himself to be intemperate ] The most shocking ex- 
cesses will result from this advice ! Thousands who, for a 
few years past at least, have mostly, or entirely abstained from 
the use of these poisonous drinks, will now with avidity have 
recourse to the prescribed preventives. The already intem- 
perate, in the higher classes of society, will add a glass or 
two more to their usual quantity, to keep off the cholera ; 
and that miserable portion of society, who feel themselves 
allotted by the universal voice of mankind, and the necessi- 
ty of their condition, as the certain victims of the disease, 
will plunge with the reckless desperation of insanity, into 
the maddest exccesses of indulgence, to find, in the oblivion 
of drunkenness, if not security from the ravages of the chol- 
era, at least an unconsciousness of its horrors ! So far will 
such a state of things be from preventing the cholera, that it 
will tremendously tend to bring it en. 

All quantities of alcohol in every form of distilled and fer- 
mented liquors — whether used as articles of diet or preven- 
tives, necessarily tend to produce that very state of the body 
which is so much dreaded, and to bring on disease of a more 
or less malignant character. 

Our distinguished countryman, the late Dr. Benjamin 
Rush, of Philadelphia, long since declared, in his lectures to 
his students, that he had for many years observed, that there 
was regularly a very great increase of cases of acute dis- 
ease on the fifth and sixth days of July, which he said were 
undoubtedly induced by the excesses of the fourth. A yery 
intelligent medical gentleman, who was several years a sur- 
geon in our Navy, informed me that at a time when the yellow 
fever was raging in the West Indies, one of our national ves- 
sels lying there on duty, was almost entirely unmanned by 
|hat malignant disease; and the frigate in which he was acU 
log as surgeon, was ordered out to take her place. Before 



75 

they arrived at their station, the surgeon assured the offi- 
cers and men, that if they indulged in the use of spirits, 
while in the West Indies, they would most certainly be cut 
off by the yellow fever. His warning was listened to, and 
the crew was saved. " But," said he, "in every instance, 
when any of the officers went on shore to dine, and drank 
wine, they were, the next day, on the sick list with a bilious 
attack. " 

" It is worthy of remark/ 'says one of our city papers which 
is the most zealous advocate for " a generous diet," — " it is 
worthy of remark that the Carricks, the vessel which it was 
supposed brought the cholera to Quebec, although she had 
thirty-nine deaths in the first part of her voyage, had none 
for a month previous to her arrival, and then the health of- 
ficer at Quebec reported there was no disease on board." 
Yet the belief in Quebec is, and undoubtedly the truth is, 
that the disease broke out among the Irish emigrant passen- 
gers of this same vessel again, soon after they landed. What 
other reasonable explanation is there for these facts, than the 
plain, common-sense one, that the passengers indulged in the 
use of spirits before they left their native homes, — that they 
brought a quantity of whiskey with them on board the Car- 
ricks, and while this lasted, their indulgence, and irregular- 
ities, and confinement, in spite of the purity of the sea air, 
developed the cholera : — that when their whiskey was all 
gone, and their habits became regular, the cholera disappear- 
ed, and health reigned for a month,* — and that when they 
landed in Quebec and began (as they unquestionably did) to 
drink whiskey again, the cholera returned among them. And 
yet our citizens are advised to drink (( generous wine, bran- 
dy, and gin," to keep off the cholera! — 1 would not be the 
author of this advice for the wealth of New York ! 

Scarcely less erroneous in its nature, and pernicious in its 
tendency, than the alcoholic prescription, is the public re- 
commendation to the citizens, to provide themselves with med- 
icine for the cholera, that they may be prepared to adminis- 
ter according to prescription, at the very first indication of 
an attack. 

For six months past, our newspapers have teemed with ac- 
counts of the cholera, with all the horrific details that can 
possibly be given. Every symptom of the disease has been 
described and republished, times without number; and those 
symptoms have been made to cover almost the whole field of 
our sympathies ; so that it is hardly possible to feel a pain or 
an affection, which does not come within some of the classi- 
fications of premonitory symptoms. 



76 

The people of this country, have been contemplating the 
ravages and advancements of this disease, and expecting its 
appearance among themselves, with a fearful anxiety, whose 
influence on their bodies has been like that which impels the 
charmed* victim of the serpent, to fly with horror into the open 
jaws of destruction ! — Thousands have deeply shuddered at 
the suggestion of their own fears, " I shall surely die with 
this awful disease ! " 

It is impossible that such a state of things should long con- 
tinue, without producing in every individual, a greater or less 
degree of morbid sensibility, and sympathy. And the mind, 
with unusual vigilance, will instinctively notice every pain 
and affection of the body. Nothing more is wanting than 
the panic which will be produced by the announcement of 
the fatal presence of the terrible destroyer, to induce in thou- 
sands, and hundreds of thousands, sympathetically, most or 
all of the premonitory symptoms ! 

Are such people in a proper state of mind or body, to pre- 
scribe or administer to themselves ? But suppose a real at- 
tack, what shall the sufferer take. Have the medical frater- 
nity prescribed to us a specific for this disease, in all its forms 
and stages; and in all persons, habits, and conditions? 
Through the whole fifteen years' career of this devastating 
disease, in Asia and Europe, and now in Canada, the most 
extreme differences of opinions, and modes of practice, and 
kinds of remedies, have been adopted by medical gentlemen 
of equal professional experience and reputation. Hundreds 
of experiments have been made, and scores of remedies 
have been publicly recommended by physicians. All this 
has found its way, of course, into the columns of our news- 
papers : and the number of preventives and remedies, has 
been greatly augmented by the gratuitous prescriptions of 
every meddling empiric and every officious editor in the com- 
munity : — and to fill up, even to overflowing, another Pando- 
ra's box, without hope at the bottom, — that execrable por- 
tion of society — those wholesale venders of death — those 
tolerated butchers of thousands, the specific mongers, are 
advertising in our respectable papers, and in glaring hand- 
bills, posted up in every part of the city, their panaceas, and 
catholicons, and hygean pills, &,c, as sure preventives and 
certain cures for the cholera ! 

In such a time of excitement and awful uncertainty, how 
shall the people ascertain which prescription is the best ? 
Alas! they have erroneously concluded that the safest way is 
to procure all the different preventives and remedies and spe- 



77 

cifics, recommended by any and every body ! More than a 
million of dollars have been worse than thrown away by the 
citizens of New York, within a few days past, for medicines 
which are more to be dreaded than any pestilential cause of 
cholera. Thus supplied, as almost every citizen is, with an 
arsenal of self-destruction, — while drug and grog shops are 
yawning at ever corner of our streets like so many craters of 
hell, to vomit out the lava of death on all who come within 
their range, — what more, I ask, is wanting than a powerful 
panic, to set this vast and complicated machinery of destruc- 
tion into violent motion, to produce the most horribly calam- 
itous results in this city ? 

I tell you, my hearers, if there is not an interference of 
proper medical and civil authority, to arrest the course which 
these things are now taking and will take in this city, the 
mischief which will ensue, should the cholera appear amongst 
us, cannot be calculated nor imagined ! 

But you ask again, — What shall we do? we cannot avoid 
excitement, and we may not be able to keep free from pan- 
ic in such a time of terror ! Follow the advice I have already 
given you. Carefully adapt your food, in quality and quan- 
tity, to the condition of your body and digestive organs and 
powers, partaking only of that which is plain, simple, nutritious 
and easily digested ; — avoiding all concentrated forms and 
artificial mixtures — all crude, heating, and irritating articles; 
in short, carefully avoid in food and drink; every thing that is 
calculated, by any means, to produce an unhealthy irritation 
or irritability in the alimentary canal; remembering always 
that the greater your panic, the more peculiarly liable are you 
to such an irritation, and therefore, that many things which 
you have at other times indulged in with apparent impunity, 
may now prove fatal to you — and make it a regular duty to 
take your proper exercise, and to sponge or bathe your body, 
and rub your skin freely all over with a coarse towel, or good 
flesh brush, and endeavor to apply your mind to proper sub- 
jects, and avoid all improper exposures, and you will with 
great certainty be able to counteract all the causes of dis- 
ease, both internal and external. 

" But shall we not be prepared for sudden attacks V Yes, 
so far as a proper government and conduct of body and 
mind can prepare you ; and then you have nothing to fear 
from an attack which will not allow you ample time either to 
take such restorative measures as I have suggested, or to call 
in some experienced, temperate physician in whom you have 
confidence. 

7 



78 

But suppose you should be suddenly attacked, what would 
you take, among the numerous prescriptions that are given to 
the public ? Not knowing the peculiar state of your system, 
nor the precise nature of your disorder, the medicine which 
you would take might be more dangerous than the disease ! 
An ordinary diarrhoea or cholera morbus, which, by proper 
treatment, would be easily managed, might, by a powerful 
dose of brandy and laudanum, be exasperated into the most 
malignant form of spasmodic cholera. Again I say, therefore, 
live properly — let preventives and remedies alone, and mind 
your own business ; and when the disease comes, it is time 
enough for you to call in a temperate and judicious physician. 
This advice, however, applies to citizens whose physicians are 
at hand, and who have apothecary shops within a few rods of 
them. People living in the country, and at a distance from 
a physician, may with propriety keep a few drugs on hand, 
but the emergency should be great, to justify their adminis- 
tering medicine without the special advice of a physician, 
unless it be something comparatively harmless, such as a 
dose of rhubarb and magnesia, or of castor oil, in case of di- 
arrhoea. 

The Gentlemen of the Corporation of this City, will par- 
don me if I now take the liberty of pointing out to them, 
some of the important bearings of the general argument be- 
fore us, on their public functions for the preservation of the 
health of the citizens. 

If I am correct in the view which I have taken of the sub- 
ject, the cholera may, in certain circumstances and condi- 
tions, be communicated either by contagion, or infection, or 
both. The distinction, however, between contagion and in- 
fection, is of little importance in relation to the public duties 
of the Guardians of the City, in establishing precautionary 
regulations and restrictions. Notwithstanding, therefore, all 
that has been said by medical gentlemen against quarantine 
regulations, there are many weighty reasons in favor of their 
proper enforcement. It is true that this disease may break 
out and prevail in a place which is guarded by the most vig- 
ilant and rigorous quarantine and sanatary regulations; but 
this is far from proving that such regulations are useless. It 
only proves that while so much care has been given to the 
protecting of the place from imported disease, there has been 
too little care to prevent the causes which may originate the 
disease within the place. For, as I believe I have clearly 
shown, the disease may be both imported and originated in 
certain conditions and circumstances. A place, therefore, in 



79 

which it would not be originated, may be saved from the dis- 
ease by proper sanatary regulations ; and a place in which it 
would be originated might be saved by a timely prevention 
and removal of the originating causes, and by proper quar- 
antine and other sanatary regulations. 

But as the cholera can neither be originated nor communi- 
cated absolutely, by any causes independent of the voluntary 
conduct of man, the more important duties of public func- 
tionaries appertain to the internal condition and conduct of 
society. 

Unfortunately, however, in this land of glorious democracy 
and individual sovereignty, the civil power is much more com- 
petent to enlarge the privileges than to restrain the pernicious 
indulgences of the governed. It may, therefore, be useless 
for me to designate those duties of the corporation which are 
of paramount importance, if they would effectually preserve 
the city from the ravages of the cholera. Nevertheless, I 
am inclined " to speak boldly as I ought to speak." 

In the work of purification, it is well enough to strew lime 
abundantly along the gutters, and in every unclean place 
throughout the city, in order to neutralize those principles 
which cause offensive odors ; but if the filth be suffered to 
remain, or if it is only gathered into heaps in the middle of 
the streets, for the carts to run over and disperse again, in 
clouds of dust, which settle upon the side walks, roll into 
every open door and window, and almost suffocate the citi- 
zens even at their tables, very little good will be effected by 
the use of disinfecting powders. But this, though of much 
importance in itself, is of very small consideration when com- 
pared with other evils existing in this city. It is in vain that 
you ransack every street, and lane, and alley, and yard, and 
private place, and cellar, and house, and strew your disinfect- 
ing powders like a snow-storm ; and scrape and sweep and 
wash, till every thing is clean enough to eat from, if still, 
those abominable seminaries of disease and death — the grog- 
shops, whether under the name of Groceries, or Taverns, or 
Coffee-houses, or Hotels, are permitted to deal out doses of 
destruction to the deceived and infatuated people. Unless the 
civil authorities of this city can shut up these places, or at 
least, stop the sale of intoxicating liquors, whatever else they 
may do to prevent the ravages of the cholera here, will be in 
effect, but little more than a public farce. But this is not all! 
Our Augean stable is by no means cleansed, even when in- 
toxicating liquors are removed. The drug-shops, if not en- 
tirely closed, should be open only to those who come with a 



80 

recipe from a regular physician, and a rigorous injunction 
snould be laid upon all apothecaries, druggists, and empirics, 
forbidding them to advertise or sell, any specifics, preventives, 
remedies, or medicines for the cholera, without permission 
from the Board of Health or from a properly constituted med- 
ical authority. 

The Press also should be silent on the subject of the chol- 
era, excepting in the publication of those statements, accounts 
or reports, which are made out by the Board of Health or by 
responsible physicians. All private communications, recom- 
mendations and prescriptions in the newspapers; and all ed- 
itorial articles or comments, excepting such as seek to allay 
the excitement, and encourage the people in a strictly tem- 
perate and virtuous course, should be entirely withheld. I 
am fully aware of the sensibility of the editorial corps, in re- 
gard to their rights and liberties in " this land of freedom " 
but I have also too good an opinion of most of them, not to 
believe that if they had a just apprehension of the mischief 
which flows from improper publications, and well-meant edi- 
torial officiousness, on such occasions, they w T ould acknowl- 
edge the propriety of my remarks, and receive them, as they 
are expressed, in the spirit of benevolence and philanthropy. 

But furthermore ; the Corporation should strictly forbid the 
sale and exposure for sale within the limits of the city, of all 
unripe, crude, and improper fruits and vegetables. In short, 
if the Corporation would be effectual in their efforts to pre- 
serve the city from the cholera, they should, if possible, pre- 
vent the use of every improper article of diet, both solid and 
liquid: — keep the city clean — introduce good water — facili- 
tate the means of bathing — promote personal and domestic 
cleanliness and comfort— get the poor out of damp cellars^ 
and other unhealthy places — not suffering them to crowd too 
many into a house, nor be exposed to confined and impure 
air, — see that they have enough of plain simple food — keep 
everything calm — and rigidly enforce proper quarantine and 
other sanatary regulations. 

Before I close my lecture, I must caution my audience not 
to misunderstand me in regard to my dietetic recommenda* 
tions. Let it be remembered that my advice is adapted to 
the present state of things. As yet the cholera is at a dis- 
tance from us ; whether it will appear in this city, or how 
soon, it is impossible for us to tell. I have supposed that you 
might have time enough to adopt my advice, and recover 
from whatever temporary depression might result from any 
change in so doing, before the disease appeared among you. 



81 

Were the cholera already here, and even now committing 
its ravages in the city, my advice would be, in some respects, 
different. I should say to you, beware of great and sudden 
changes under the influence of panic ; beware of extremes ! 
If you have eaten flesh freely up to this hour, I would not say, 
abandon it totally at once ! but diminish its quantity ; let its 
quality be good, and let it be plainly and simply prepared, 
and eaten without made gravies, or much seasoning, and not 
more than once a day. If you have used tobacco freely up 
to this hour, and cannot forsake it at once, without suffering 
greatly from its absence, diminish your quantity as fast as 
you can, prudently, and get clear of it entirely. Tobacco 
has been said to be a good preventive, but such a notion is 
destitute of all truth. Cleanse yourselves, therefore, from this 
abominable and deleterious narcotic ! — In like manner, also, 
get rid of your tea and coffee ; in moderate quantities they 
are decidedly pernicious — in excesses they will powerfully 
predispose to cholera, and every other disease. If you have 
drank distilled or fermented liquors freely up to this hour, 
and cannot abandon them totally at once, without prostrat- 
ing the organic functions of your system, your condition is an 
unhappy one. If you go on and do not perish, your escape 
will be almost a miracle. It cannot be more dangerous to 
stop short, than it is to go on in such a habit, especially if 
your regimen in other respects be wise and well ordered, be- 
ing regular in your meals — temperate in your quantities, and 
gradually diminishing your proportion of animal food and 
other objectionable articles; and getting down to a vegetable 
and water level as soon as you prudently can, and then pur- 
suing the system I have recommended in my present lecture. 
Finally, those who can adopt the system I have recommend- 
ed, without a change which would seriously let down, for a 
time, the functional action of their body, should enter into 
it at once ; but those who cannot, should get into it as soon 
as they prudently can. — Such, I say, would be my advice if 
the cholera were now raging around you and among you ; 
but as it is not, my earnest entreaty now is, — remain not an 
hour in the Sodom of your pernicious habits and indulgences ! 
11 Escape for your lives ! — Look not behind you ; neither stay 
ye in all the plain ! — escape to the mountain, lest ye be con- 
sumed ! " 

7* 



82 
NOTE A.— PAGE 43. 

Several months after the first edition of the foregoing lec- 
ture was published, the following interesting corroboration of 
the views presented in the text, appeared in the London Med- 
ical Gazette. 

11 While on the subject of Cholera, we should state that the 
speedy use of tepid water, in cases of sudden bowel attacks, 
is strongly recommended, — half a pint to be taken every two 
minutes during pain, and to be still continued even should 
vomiting eusue. A physician at Gloucester last year, cured 
eighteen or twenty cholera cases in this manner." 

NOTE B.— PAGE 44. 

In regard to remedial agents to be employed in extreme 
cases of cholera, I spoke with great diffidence when I first 
delivered my lecture in New York, in March, 1832, and when 
1 repeated it in June following, about two weeks before the 
epidemic made its appearance in that city. Having had no 
experience in this disease, I was then, of course, obliged to 
found all my opinions, as to the treatment of it, on what I 
conceived to be its evident principles of physiological pa- 
thology. Since then, as you all well know, the most terrible 
experiment has been made in our midst, and by it the gen- 
eral doctrines, which I taught some months before the dis- 
ease appeared in this country, have been fully and most sig- 
nally demonstrated to be correct. 

The most simple mode of treating the disease has, beyond 
all question, been far the most successful; and probably 
throughout the whole range of this terrible epidemic thus 
far, no mode of treatment has been attended with so great 
and invariable success as that which is presented in the fol- 
lowing communication from Mr. George Bond of Orchard 
street, New York, and which, it will readily be perceived, 
differs but very little from the one suggested in the text. 

Letter from Mr. George Bond. 

Mr. Graham. Sir, — About eighteen years ago, I had a 
very severe turn of bloody flux, which proved exceedingly 
obstinate and unmanageable. The skill of my physician 
was completely baffled, and his medicine seemed wholly in- 
effectual. Clear blood ran from my bowels in alarming pro- 
fusion, and nothing seemed to have any effect to stop it. My 
physician finally declared that he could do nothing more for 
ma; and to all human appearance I must die with the com* 



83 

plaint. At this crisis some one recommended the internal 
use of salt and vinegar and hot water. I know not why it 
was, but I was very favorably impressed by the suggestion, 
and had a great desire to try the prescription. My physician 
said it could do me no hurt, if it did me no good. I there- 
fore had some immediately prepared, in the proportion of a 
tea-spoonful of salt, a table-spoonful of good cider vine- 
gar, and a tea-cupful of boiling water, and I took about a 
half a table-spoonful of this mixture every five minutes. I 
was immediately benefited by it, — the flux ceased, and I was 
soon restored to health. 

As soon as I heard the cholera was in this country, I be- 
gan to read the accounts of it, and it struck me that the salt 
and vinegar and hot water would be the best possible reme- 
dy for it. With this impression, I called on Dr. L , (at 

the corner of Sheriff and Delancy streets) and asked him if 
there was no cure for this disease. He said there were vari- 
ous modes of treating it, but no specific remedy had yet been 
found out. I told him, I believed I could cure it. He ask- 
ed me how. With salt and vinegar and hot water, said I. 

Dr. B , who had come in while we were talking, replied 

that vinegar would not answer at all in the cholera. I told 
him that I wished to Heaven that some of my own family 
might have the cholera that night, so that I could try my rem- 
edy ; for I was very confident it would cure the disease. This 
was sometime in the latter part of June, near the last of the 
month. My wife had been about nine years afflicted with poor 
health and a partial alienation of mind ; and had been subject 
to frequent turns of diarrhoea. About the fourth of July, a di- 
arrhoea came upon her, which we thought one of her ordinary 
turns, and paid no particular attention to it. On the night of 
the seventh, at about one o'clock, she woke me, and with a 
perfectly rational mind, said to me, " I am dying." I laid my 
hand on her, and found she was cold as death, and covered 
with a cold clammy sweat, and soon ascertained she was vio- 
lently vomiting and purging, and dreadfully cramped and 
convulsed. I sprang from my bed and as quick as possible, 
kindled a fire and put over a kettle of water ; and then called 

up my little son and sent him for doctor L . In the mean 

time my wife was so terribly handled with the disease, that I 
could not mistake its character. I was sure it was the chol- 
era, and I was exceedingly alarmed at its awful violence ; for 
I feared that nothing on earth could control it. As soon as 
the water boiled, however, I prepared a dose of salt and vin- 
egar and hot water, and gave it to her; and with equal aston^ 
ishment and delight found that it arrested at once the vomiting 



84 

and purging ; I then dipped some flannel in a mixture of the 
same kind and put it hot over her stomach and bowels, and 
in less than fifteen minutes her cramps and spasms were all 
removed, and she was in a very profuse perspiration, and 
quite at ease. I repeated the dose of salt and vinegar and hot 
water once or twice afterwards to keep up the perspiration. 
My son returned and said that the doctor told him that he 
knew nothing what to do if he came, and therefore it would 
be of no use for him to come. 

By morning, my wife was able to sit up, and after the ope- 
ration of a dose of castor oil, was soon restored to her ordi- 
nary health ; with much less alienation of mind, however, than 
before. I was now fully confirmed in my confidence in the 
efficacy of the salt and vinegar remedy for the cholera ; and 

called again on Dr. L , to state to him the results of my 

experiment. He was much surprised to hear that my wife 
was still living and doing well, and that I had treated her 
only as I had, The cholera now began to prevail pretty ex- 
tensively in the city, and I devoted the greater part of my 
time through the whole season of sickness, in visiting the 
sick, and administering my simple remedy to them : and in- 
variably with entire success, in every stage of the disease ; 
and many who were cured in this manner went out also, and 
administered the same remedy to the sick with the same suc- 
cess; so that I may safely say that hundreds were the sub- 
jects of this treatment. No less than fourteen, of my own 
and my brother's families, were severely attacked with the 
cholera, and all were cured by this simple remedy. My son, 

12 years old, and the son of our neighbor, Mrs. D , a 

widow lady, about 14 years old, were together, and ate green 
apples one afternoon, and at about four o'clock, the next 
morning, both of them were violently attacked with cholera. 
I gave my son the hot salt water and vinegar, which soon re- 
lieved him, and in two days he was able to be about his busi- 
ness again. Mrs. D sent for a physician for her son, 

and he was put under medical treatment, and very soon went 
into a collapsed state. I called the next morning to see him, 
and found him in a most awful condition. His symptoms 
were extremely violent; death-like coldness, violent vomiting 
and purging — powerful spasms all over; and the doctor told 
me that the pulse had been entirely gone for five hours. I 
ordered some boiling water, and put in my salt and vinegar 
in due proportions, and administered it in the form of a po- 
tation and injection, and dipped flannels in it, and applied 
them to his body, and rubbed his limbs with hot flannels ; 



85 

and the violent vomiting and purging and cramps were soon 
. arrested, and the patient began to perspire very profusely, and 
J in forty-five minutes, his pulse beat sixty times in a minute 
j with a full, fair stroke ; and the patient was doing as well as 
could be wished. Some slight spasms remained in the ex- 
I tremities, but they were fast yielding to the influence of my 

4 treatment." At this juncture Dr. C came in, and order- 

I ed the boy, profusely sweating as he was, to be stripped and 
rubbed all over with mercurial ointment. He also ordered 
i large doses of mercury. I told him the boy was doing well, 
and as sure as his directions were followed the boy would 
i not live an hour. But he disregarded my remonstrance and 
persisted in his course. The unhappy boy entreated his 
mother not to follow the doctor's prescription, and said it 
would kill him; but she, full of anxiety and alarm, yielded 
to the doctor's authority. The poor boy begged me to come 
to him, which I did, and he threw his arms around my neck 
and kissed me, and said-— " you have done all you could for 
me and I thank you for it" In a short time after he took 
the powder which Dr. C — =-r ordered, his vomiting, purging, 
and cramps, returned upon him and soon became as violent 

as ever, and his pulse again ceased. Dr. W now came 

in, and seeing the state of things and learning what had 

been done, he turned to Dr. C • and said to him, " you 

have killed that child ! " Then turning to me he asked if I 
could not raise him again. — I told him it was too late. In 
forty-five minutes after the patient was put under the treat- 
ment of Dr C , he died. 

Soon after this Dr. R. came for me about midnight and 
wished me to go with him and see a patient (in Suffolk St.) 
which he said was very bad, and he could do nothing With 
her. He said he had had a number of patients in the same 
neighborhood, and they had all died in spite of every thing 
he could do. I went with him and found a woman in the 
most terrible agonies I ever witnessed. She was vomiting 
and purging with shocking violence, and her body and limbs 
were horridly drawn up and distorted with cramps. Several 
persons were trying to relieve her by rubbing her, but she 
seemed as though she was possessed by an infuriated fiend 
which was endeavoring to torment her to the utmost. I treat- 
ed her in the same manner I had Mrs. D— — J s son, and in 
less than twenty minutes she was quietly perspiring in her 
bed, and the next day she was able to be about house : and 
in two or three days more, was well. On the same night, a 
woman died in the room above her, of whose case I did not 
know till after her death. 



86 

A. P., in Grand Street, had the cholera with great viru- 
lence ; several physicians visited him, but Dr. R. had the 
principal care of him : but none of them were able to arrest 
the disease in the least degree, and the patient sunk into an 
extreme state of collapse; and Dr. R. said he must die in 
spite of all earthly means to save him. In this state of things 
I was sent for, and administered my simple remedy, and the 
patient was almost instantly relieved; and in a few days was 
about his business. His wife also had the cholera, and was 
cured in the same way. Soon after this I was in at Dr. L.'s 
office, and a Mrs. D. of Willet street, came in for some med- 
icine, and said that her husband had the cholera very bad in- 
deed. She said he had been out on watch the night before, 
and as he did not come home at his usual time in the morn- 
ing, she felt uneasy about him, and went down town after 
him, and found him in a back yard in a dreadful state of the 
cholera : he was unable to stand, and she got a hack and 
brought him home, and called in a physician as soon as pos- 
sible ; but the doctor had not yet been able to check the dis- 
ease, and she feared he would die. Dr. L. told her she had 
better ask me to go and see him. She was afraid of offending 
her physician — Dr. D., and did not then request me to go, 
but soon sent after me. I found Mr. D. in a truly shocking 
state : his skin was a dark violet-blue, — his vomiting, purging, 
spasms, and other symptoms, were awful beyond description. 
Dr. D. was giving him powerful doses of medicine, but with- 
out the least favorable effect. Soon after I came in, he gave 
orders how to give the medicine, and said he must go and 
see some other patients, and would be back as soon as he 
coujci, The Dr. h^d scarce left the door before I ordered 
some boiling water, and without loss of time administered my 
simple remedy to the sufferer. When the doctor returned he 
found his patient lying quietly in his bed, perspiring profuse- 
ly, — no vomiting, no purging — no spasms, skin natural, and 
scarce a symptom of cholera about him. 

The doctor was surprised and delighted at the happy effect 
of his medicine, and said it had done wonders, and the pa- 
tient was doing finely, and would get well. He then told us 
how to proceed, and again went to visit other patients. But 
his second orders shared the fate of his first — not a particle 
of his medicine was given during his absence, nor any thing 
else but the salt, and vinegar, and hot water. Mrs. D,, how* 
ever, thought it not best to let him know any thing about it j 
and when he came again, he pronounced the patient safe, and 
congratulated himself very much on his success in such a 
very violent case. I now left the house in company with the, 



87 

doctor, and began to talk to him concerning the treatment of 
the cholera, and told him I believed I could cure every case, 
if I could have a fair and timely opportunity. The doctor 
turned and looked at me with an air of great contempt, and 
exclaimed, in a sneering and emphatic manner, "How, in 
the name of God, can it be that you, an unlearned man, 
should know how to cure the cholera, when our most learn- 
ed and eminent physicians cannot do it 1 9i Having said 
this he left me abruptly, and there our acquaintance ended. 
William A. D. however, soon recovered his health, and is 
now living and well. 

J. V., who had always habitually made a free use of ar- 
dent spirits, had the cholera very severely. The cramp in 
his limbs was so excessively violent that it drew his flesh all 
up into knots, some of which remained for six weeks. He 
took various medicines without the least effect, and when it 
was supposed that he was past all possibility of relief, he 
took the hot salt water and vinegar, and was almost instantly 
relieved, and soon got well. 

I could detail a great number of similar cases, but suffice 
it to say that in more than a hundred instances where I ad- 
ministered this remedy, I never knew it to fail of complete 
success in one case. I went one day with Dr. R. into Slam's 
buildings in Delancy and Suffolk streets, and there I saw the 
most horrid secnes I ever witnessed on earth. All kinds and 
colors were crowded together, — the sick, the dying, and the 
dead. In one vacated room, the dead body of a negro lay 
rotting on the floor ; — Mr. S. of Second Avenue, went and 
covered it over. — Another man came and looked in at the 
door, and the next day he died. Mr. S. was continually in 
the midst of the cholera, and in the filthiest places where 
sickness and suffering were to be found. He used the pre- 
cautionary measure of washing his body frequently in vine- 
gar, and, I believe, wholly escaped an attack. But I have 
dwelt long enough on these scenes of suffering and horror. 
Yours respectfully, GEORGE BOND. 

New York, April 7, 1833. 

P. S. I ought to have stated, that after having extensive- 
ly proved the success of the salt and vinegar remedy for the 
cholera, I went to a number of our city editors, and tried to 
get them to publish it, but they all refused to do so, except v 
Mr. Webb, of the Courier and Enquirer. He published it, 
and not long afterwards received a letter from Norfolk, Va., 
stating that the salt and vinegar remedy had proved the most 
successful in that place, of any thing which had been tried. 

G. B. 



88 

On my return to New York I took much pains to ransack 
the city and investigate the cases presented by Mr Bond, and 
I was not able to hear of a single case of death from chole- 
ra where this mode of treatment was fairly tried. Dr. 
L , of Delancy street, assured me, that after having fail- 
ed entirely in every other mode of treatment, and lost every 
patient he was called to, he adopted the mode of treatment, 
recommend by Mr. Bond, and did not lose another patient, 
during the season. I have called on a number of persons in 
the upper part of the city, who informed me that they had 
the " collapsed stage" of the cholera to such a degree that 
all medicine was ineffectual, and the attending physicians 
pronounced them past remedy : and then, as a last experi- 
ment, they took the hot salt water and vinegar, and were 
almost immediately relieved ; and soon recovered health. 

According to Mr. Bond then, when any one suffers a vio- 
lent attack, and is taken with the worst form of the disease 
at first, or has neglected or maltreated the diarrhoea till vio- 
lent vomiting, and convulsive spasms and cramps in the body 
and limbs, and burning sensations in the epigastric regions, 
&c. &c. supervene, let the patient take to his bed, and let a 
kettle of water be boiled as quickly as possible, and then put 
into an ordinary sized tea-cup, or some other vessel of the 
same capacity, one tea-spoonful of good, common table salt, 
and one table-spoonful of good cider vinegar, (remember it 
must be good cider vinegar,) and fill the cup with boiling wa- 
ter, and let the patient swallow this dose as hot as he can 
wihout scalding himself, and without sipping. If he sips it 
down, it will be more likely to come up again : but if he 
swallows the whole dose, as it were, at a single draught, it 
will almost certainly remain on the stomach, and at once ar- 
rest the vomiting and purging, and violent spasms, and in a 
few minutes bring on a profuse perspiration. 

If, however, the first dose should be thrown up, give the 
second dose of the same kind, and even the third, and more 
if necessary ; — but when it is properly prepared and taken, 
the first dose is very rarely thrown up, and the second never. 
Albeit if the spasms in some measure continue, it is well, at 
intervals, to repeat small doses, though the first dose should 
entirely arrest the vomiting and purging. 

If the case should be still worse, and the patient should be 
in what is called the collapsed state, in which, besides the 
symptoms already mentioned, there is no perceptible pulse, the 
voice very feeble or entirely lost, and the skin cold and clam- 
my, and of a dark purple color, &c., let the hot water, salt 



and vinegar, be given in the same manner as above directed, 
and let a like preparation be injected freely into the intestines, 
as hot as the patient can safely endure it ; and let flannels 
be dipped into some of the same, and laid hot upon the stom- 
ach and bowels, and let the limbs be briskly chafed with hot 
flannels, till the patient becomes quiet, which will soon be 
the case, and then let him be well covered, so as to promote 
the perspiration, which in a few minutes will be seen gush- 
ing copiously from all the pores of the skin. If any spas- 
modic affections or pains remain, let the patient, at intervals 
of from fifteen to thirty minutes, as the symptoms may be, 
swallow small doses of the hot salt water and vinegar ; which, 
in such cases, should be prepared in considerable quantities, 
in the proportions of one measure of salt to four of vinegar, 
and sixteen of boiling water. 

By this mode of treatment, the vomiting and purging will 
be arrested almost instantaneously ; the spasms will be sub- 
dued ; a profuse perspiration will follow in a very few min- 
utes ; the pulse will soon be perceptible, and in a short time 
be restored to a regular action ; the skin will gradually re- 
sume its natural color and warmth ; and in a few hours the 
patient will feel entirely free from the disease. Now the ju- 
dicious physician, or nurse, may find it proper to administer 
a gentle cathartic, adapted in its kind, to the peculiar habits 
and condition of the patient: either a dose of rhubarb and 
calcined magnesia, or castor oil, and then always strictly ob- 
serving the same regimen that I have already prescribed for 
the diarrhoea, and follow on with a judicious diet, and all will 
go well. 

Since the first edition of this work was published I have 
found that in cases of great morbid irritability of the stomach, 
attended with constant vomiting, and throwing up of every 
thing swallowed, if the hot salt water and vinegar be adminis- 
tered in small quantities — say a tea-spoonful at a time, at 
short intervals, it will almost invariably allay the irritation in 
a very short time and enable the patient to retain medicinal 
or alimentary substances on the stomach. Indeed there are 
many cases in which it may be used with great advantage as 
a medicine, in allaying the morbid irritations and actions of 
the stomach and bowels, and it is, perhaps, one of the most 
powerful agents which can be employed in bringing on a sud- 
den and profuse perspiration. 
8 



APPENDIX. 



The common opinion which prevailed in New York, for 
a considerable time preceding and succeeding the appearance 
of the Cholera in that city, was, that a generous diet of flesh 
and flesh soups, with brandy, port wine, and porter, was the 
best preventive measure that the citizens could adopt to save 
themselves from the awful ravages of the disease ; and while 
some of the physicians took a manly and noble stand against 
this ruinous error, too many of them on the othei hand, gave 
decided countenance to it. Dr. Rheinlander, one of the 
physicians sent by the city to Canada to ascertain how to 
treat the disease, published his advice, cautioning the people 
against the use of distilled spirits but recommending the use 
of port wine, and thus caused thousand of gallons, of a vile 
mixture of whiskey, logwood, and other abominable things, 
to be sold and drank under the name of port wine ; which 
was incomparably worse than the clear whiskey itself. This 
was soon followed by the appearance of an article in the 
Courier and Enquirer from Dr. Felix Pascalis, in which he 
says that " the ravages of the Cholera will probably increase 
in the city, until it has decimated, or even extirpated the 
whole class that subsist with little or no animal food." And 
again ; — " as for preventive remedies, the reader will remem- 
ber that the Delta of the Ganges is called the cradle of the 
Cholera, and that there the inhabitants do not live upon ani- 
mal food ; that in China, where animal food is scarce, the pes- 
tilence was most unsparing, and that at Hurdwar in 1783, 
20,000 of the fasting pilgrims were cut off in less than a week, 
&c." The reasoning and deductions of the whole article 
were extremely loose and inconclusive and erroneous, — but 
they were ad captandum vulgus, and together with Dr. De 
Kay's and Dr. Rheinlander's prescriptions of brandy and wine 
soon became the voxpopuli of the city ; while the columns of 
the newspapers daily contained advertisements recommending 
Swaime's Panacea, Hygean pills, and other wholesale instru- 
ments of death, as sure preventives and remedies for the 
cholera. 

In such a state of delusion, and depravity, and panic, it 
was very natural that the most clamorous out-cry should be 
raised against the dietetic doctrines which I had taught in 
my lectures. Every dealer in intoxicating liquors, including 
Hotels and Coffee Houses, — every druggist, and almost every 



91 

butcher, and baker, and tobacconist, and grocer, and flour 
dealer, and " free liver " in the city, felt deeply interested to 
save the people from the ravages of cholera by virtue of a 
"generous diet " of flesh, flesh soups, brandy, wine, porter, 
tobacco, coffee, tea, fine bread, &c. therefore all were gener- 
ously willing to lend their voices in the cry, that all the " Gra- 
hamites " were dead and dying with the cholera. The most 
egregious misrepresentations and unblushing falsehoods, were 
daily fabricated and busily circulated throughout the city, 
and even physicians who hold a respectable standing in soci- 
ety, boldly asserted, as a matter of their knowledge, that the 
" Grahamites" were dying by hundreds with cholera. At 
the same time the bakers who had undertaken to furnish the 
citizens with the kind of bread which I had recommended, 
— in some instances, there is reason to believe, from the bas- 
est of purposes, and in others, from culpable negligence, 
suffered their bread to degenerate into the vilest stuff imagi- 
nable, and thus brought it into very great disrepute, and un- 
doubtedly, in many instances, caused it to become seriously 
injurious to them that ate it. 

Such a mighty conspiracy against the cause of truth was 
surely enough to try the courage and firmness of its friends in 
such a time of terror and death. Nevertheless there were 
some hundreds in the city whose steadfastness neither public 
clamour, and misrepresentation, and falsehood, nor profes- 
sional assertions, nor any other cause could shake. They 
strictly pursued the course which I had pointed out, and 
calmly kept about their business, or humanely devoted them- 
selves to the alleviation of the sufferings of the sick. Nor 
did they idly listen to the misrepresentations and falsehoods 
which were daily kept on the wing. Whenever these things 
received a definite form and locality, they were promptly in- 
vestigated, and ascertained to be destitute of truth, and gen- 
erally destitute of honesty. Mr. Goodell, the editor of the 
Genius of Temperance, ferreted them out, and exposed 
them, with a diligence and boldness which were worthy of 
the cause of truth and humanity. 

On my return to the city, I made it my first business to as- 
certain, as far as possible, what had been the real effect of my 
dietetic system, in relation to the cholera. I immediately 
called at all those places where it had been said that " Gra- 
hamites " had died of that disease ; and also called upon all 
those physicians who, I was informed, had asserted that the 
" Grahamites/' were all dying with cholera. The result of 
my inquiries was as follows ;— *■ 



92 

The family of Mr. B — , in Madison street, had attended 
my lectures daring the preceding winter, and partially adopt- 
ed the dietetic system which I taught ; but they continued in 
it only a short time ; and, some months before the cholera ap- 
peared in the city, the whole family, except the oldest daugh- 
ter, returned entirely to their former habits of living, and 
were most or all of them, cut off by cholera, except the old- 
est daughter, who continued pretty strictly on my system, and 
wholly escaped. 

The family of Mr. A , in James Street, had attend- 
ed my lectures during the preceding winter, and left off cof- 
fee and tea, and did not use so much flesh as before ; yet not- 
withstanding, he was, and long had been, habitually costive, 
he and his family continued to eat the fine, bakers' bread. 
After the cholera commenced, he continued to eat his beef 
steak, roast beef, puddings, &c. and to eat only the fine flour 
bread, though very costive. He was a dyer, and dyed some 
clothes of those who had perished of cholera. He took a 
dose of medicine as a preventive — became worse — sent for a 
physician — took his medicine, and was soon in a collapsed 
state, and died. Two of his children and an intemperate 
apprentice died also ; but whether of the cholera or the med- 
icine, or both, is uncertain. 

The family of A. C ~, in Pearl Street, had attended 

my lectures during the preceding winter and spring; — they 
adopted my system, to a considerable extent, and Mr. C. and 
his wife found their health much improved by it. When the 
cholera broke out, however, they all, but one son, so far yield- 
ed to what seemed to be medical authority, as to return to 
what was called a more M generous diet/' and took their flesh 
dinners, with desserts, &c. The whole family, except the 
son, who strictly followed my rules, were taken with diar- 
rhoea, which, however, by being attended to, was soon 
checked, in all but the worthy old gentleman, who neglected 
his disorder, and suffered it to run on, occasionally taking 
some astringent or cathartic medicine, and continuing about 
his business, and eating as usual, and regularly taking two or 
three cups of strong coffee every morning before he rose. 
About the ninth day he took his regular dinner of flesh, &c. 
and after it ate freely of a flour pudding, with wine sauce, 
and to prevent any bad effects, took three glasses of port 
wine, according to the public advice of Dr. Rheinlander. 
The next morning he was very sick, and took his coffee as 
usual — grew worse through the day — fell under medical 
treatment, and died in a few hours. The death of this ex* 



93 

cellent man, caused more consternation than any other death 
which took place in the city during the sickness ; because 
he was supposed to be a " strict Grahamite." There were a 
few other cases which were about as near to my regimen as 
those I have detailed : and these were the " hundreds of Gra- 
hamites who had died of cholera." 

I then called on the physician who had asserted that hun- 
dreds of Grahamites had died of the cholera, and asked him 
if he knew of a single case of a person's dying of cholera, 
who had strictly followed my system. He replied that he did 
not, and then gratuitously added, " and I never said that I 
did.' 5 Every other physician on whom I called, gave me the 
same negative answer, excepting one, who very confidently 
assured me that he had lost one such patient. I asked the 
name and number, and, on investigating the matter, found 
that the said patient had never attended my lectures, and in 
no respect any farther adopted my system, than to abstain 
from the use of ardent spirits : but the brother of the de- 
ceased, who took care of him through his sickness, without 
any touch of the disease himself, had heard some of my lec- 
tures, and to a considerable extent adopted my system of 
diet. 

The result of my inquiries was, that I could not ascertain 
that a single individual had died of cholera during the sick- 
ness in the city, who had, with any tolerable degree of strict- 
ness and propriety, followed the regimen which I had pre* 
scribed in my lecture on the cholera. Nor was I able to as- 
certain that more than two or three such persons had even 
had the slightest symptoms, while, on the other hand, there 
were hundreds who strictly followed my rules, many of whom 
were exposed in the utmost degree, and yet not one of them 
had a symptom of the disease. 

I then advertised in most of the papers of the city, that a 
public meeting would be held at the Chatham Street Chapel, 
on which occasion I would expose and repel the various mis- 
representations and calumnies which had been raised against 
my system, in relation to the cholera. The meeting was very 
large, and I met the objections which had been raised ; and 
challenged any one to prove a single instance of an individ- 
ual's having died of the cholera, during the prevalence of 
that disease, who had strictly and properly followed the regi- 
men prescribed in my lecture on the cholera. This silenced 
the public clamor : but ever and anon the smothered mutter- 
ings of 'particular ones were indistinctly heard. I then ad- 
dressed two letters to Philip Hone, Esq. through the Corn- 
s' 



94 

mercial Advertiser, in one of which 1 held the following lan- 
guage : " I have called, and still call, for the statement and 
substantiation of facts against my system ; but I shall not be 
satisfied with popular and vulgar clamor, nor with indefinite 
and anonymous publications. I ask credible persons, under 
their own true signatures, to come out and specify cases, if 
they know of any ; and give names, streets and numbers: — 
and I will honestly examine them, and if I find them true, I 
will publicly acknowledge them." 

Yet no one met this call, and with all this public and pri- 
vate inquiry, I have not been able to ascertain a single in- 
stance in which any individual has suffered either from chol- 
era or any other disease, who has strictly and properly pur- 
sued the regimen prescribed in my lectures. The following 
testimonies, on the other hand, are mostly extracts from much 
longer statements which I have received from the individuals 
whose names are given. 



Mr. Graham. Sir, — In stating my views of simple diet, 
as a means of preserving health and preventing disease, I 
must necessarily be brief for want of time. I think I have 
the most ample evidence of its salutary and conservative ef- 
fects in my own person, of which, for the sake of the testi- 
mony — though I would not appear obtrusive — I will give 
some account. I had been afflicted, both before and during 
my medical studies, with that worst of diseases, chronic dys- 
pepsia, from which I never obtained any permanent relief, 
until about eighteen months since, when I put myself on the 
simple mode of living recommended in your Lectures. For 
nearly a year, I subsisted principally upon coarse wheat-meal 
bread and milk, with great advantage to my health; when 
happening to get some milk which tasted and smelled of gar- 
lick, I became so disgusted with it, that, in May last, I ex- 
changed my milk for spring water, which, with the coarse 
bread, has constituted my diet since. During the past sum- 
mer, and especially the cholera season, my professional du- 
ties were exceedingly arduous, and I often felt myself nearly 
worn out for want of rest and sleep. Yet through the whole 
sickness, I subsisted on one pound per day of coarse unleav- 
ened crackers, with some fruit and spring water, and expe- 
rienced no disorder of the stomach or bowels, but enjoyed, 
and still continue to enjoy, better health than I have experi- 
enced before for the last fifteen years. 

On looking over my Notes of cholera cases, taken at the 
bedside of the patients, I find that the occasion of the dis- 
ease could be traced, in a very large majority of cases, either 



95 

to confirmed habits of intemperance, or to some prominent 
act of imprudence. I speak here of patients in both Hos- 
pitals and private practice. And furthermore, — in treating 
the disease, my experience is in favor of the most simple 
practice, and altogether unfavorable to the opium treatment. 
Many people — and among them, some of my own profession, 
have asserted that simple vegetable diet was conducive to, 
and in many cases, had actually produced cholera. I have 
taken considerable pains to investigate these matters, and in 
not a single instance have I been able to verify their asser- 
tions : — but on the contrary, I have uniformly found that ev- 
ery person who has strictly and judiciously followed the sys- 
tem of diet and regimen recommended by yourself, has not 
only escaped the cholera, but enjoved verv general good 
health. Yours truly, AMOS POLLARD, M. D. 

New York, Nov, 30, 1832. 

Sir, — Having attended your lectures in New York, last 
winter, and to a considerable extent adopted your system of 
living, I went to Montreal, and was there from the time the 
cholera broke out, until it had nearly ceased ; and although I 
did not in all respects live so simple as I ought to have done, 
and as I wished to do, yet such was my confidence in the 
regimen I observed, that notwithstanding the very great num- 
bers of dead and dying which I daily saw around me, I felt 
not the slightest alarm, till the destroyer entered our board- 
ing house, suddenly snatched away two of its inmates, and 
so terrified the rest, that they all left, except myself and my 
cousin, who was also partially a disciple of yours. Even 
then my confidence was not diminished. Two letters which 
I wrote on the prevention and treatment of cholera were 
published in the Montreal Gazette; for their contents I was 
chiefly indebted to you. Your Ob't Serv't, 

52 Monroe St. N Y Jan., 1833. JAMES DRYDEN. 

Mr. Graham. Sir, — After having been grievously afflict- 
ed several years with dyspepsy, I attended your Lectures, 
adopted your system, and entirely recovered my health. 
Through the cholera season, I subsisted almost entirely on 
Graham bread and water, and enjoyed the most perfect and 
uninterrupted health, and gained several pounds of flesh. Our 
family, consisting of ten members, who lived on what the 
doctors call a more " generous diet " of flesh, coffee, tea, fine 
bread, &,c. all had pretty severe attacks of cholera, and some 
of them two and three attacks. My brother David, who 
lived as the rest of the family did, but used no spirits, went 



with me three several times through the cholera hospitals, to 
see the sick, and during the night following each time, he 
had a severe attack of cholera, while I had not even a pre- 
monitory symptom of the disease through the season. 

Yours truly, ALBERT WOODMAN. 
New York, May 16, 1833. 

Sir, — Myself, wife and sister, had all been afflicted with 
poor health, and particularly my wife and sister, for ma- 
ny years before we heard your Lectures, and adopted your 
system of living. Neither of us has eaten any flesh-meat since : 
which is now more than a year. We spent the past summer 
in the city, and never enjoyed better health than we did 
through the whole cholera season. That dreadful disease 
raged all around us, and cut off many of our neighbors, and 
even came into our own house and attacked our mother, who 
did not live on your system, but ate flesh, &,c. and I was 
much amongst the dying and the dead, and assisted in lay- 
ing out and putting into their coffins at least a dozen bodies 
of those who had died of cholera, yet neither myself, wife, 
nor sister, had the least premonitory symptom of cholera, nor 
any other illness during the whole season. 

Respectfully yours, EVANDER D. FISHER. 

No. 19, Essex Street, New York, Jan. 7, 1833. 

Dear Sir, — Beside the many other and great advantages 
which myself and family have derived from your valuable lec- 
tures, I will add, that we remained in the city during the 
cholera season last summer, and living near one of the chol- 
era hospitals, we daily saw the dying and the dead carried by 
our door ; yet having attended your lecture on cholera, and 
living strictly on your plan, we felt so much confidence in 
your views that we had no dread of the disease : and we did 
not spend one cent at the drug-shops for preventives : and 
what is still more remarkable, — the report was that the Gra- 
hamites were dying like rotten sheep, and that in our fami- 
ly there was only one Grahamite, and she had the cholera 
very bad ; and the rest of the family, who were not Graham- 
ites, escaped : whereas, the truth is, that we were all living 
on your plan most strictly, except my mother, who thought 
she required the "more generous diet" to which she had al- 
ways been accustomed, and she had a very severe attack of 
the cholera, while the rest of us had not a symptom, but en- 
joyed the best of health. Your sincere friend, 

WILLIAM MITCHELL. 

No. 437, Broadway, New York, March 20, 1833. 



97 

Sir, — Four members of our large family lived strictly on 
your system during the cholera season, last summer, eating 
no flesh, and subsisting principally on Graham bread; they 
enjoyed excellent health, and none of them had the slightest 
symptom of cholera during the season ; while every other 
member of the family had more or less of that disease. 

Yours, &,c. P . 

No. 13, Northmore St. New York, March 22, 1833. 

Sir, — During the prevalence of the cholera last summer, 
all our family had more or less of that dreadful disease, ex- 
cept myself: they ate flesh, &,c. and I ate none ; but lived 
strictly on your system. And what, in all probability, would 
have been my case, if that awful epidemic had found me in 
that condition of body in which I was, before I adopted your 
system of living ? — I verily believe, that, but for you, I 
should not now be among the living on earth. But, blessed 
be God ! I am not only living, but well. I have scarcely 
known an hour's indisposition during the past twelve months. 
And what a change is this, after having been afflicted as I 
have been for more than twenty years. 

Yours respectfully, H. WHEELER. 

Bowery, near North St. N. Y. Feb. 19, 1833. 

Sir, — Since about the year 1818, I have been afflicted 
with very feeble health. In the autumn of 1831, I com- 
menced attending your lectures, and soon began to adopt 
your system of diet, and lived very strictly on it during the 
cholera season; eating no flesh, and using the Graham bread. 
My health improved very much, and continued good through 
the summer. I saw many cases of cholera, and stood over 
several patients, and administered to them, and rubbed them, 
but had not a symptom of the disease myself. 

Yours, with sincere respect, 

F. L. WILSEY. 

New York, Jan. 17, 1833. 

Sir, — Myself and wife had long been in very feeble health, 
and laboring under many serious symptoms of pulmonary 
consumption, when we adopted the system of living recom- 
mended in your Lectures; since which time, our health has 
improved exceedingly. We, and our children, and other 
members of our family, spent the cholera season in the city; 
all living strictly on your system. Our immediate neighbor- 
hood was very sickly. The cholera was all around us, and 



98 

the people died on every side of us. One man died next 
door, so near to us, that I could reach my hand out of my 
window into his room ; and the offensive smell of his body, 
after death, came in and scented our house ; and yet none of 
us had any thing of the disease. I have two apprentices 
both of which lived strictly on the Graham system through 
the worst of the cholera season, without the least indisposi- 
tion. The older one then went into the country, where he 
spent two weeks, and lived quite generously on animal food, 
Stc. and then returned to the city, and took the cholera im- 
mediately ; and had three doctors to keep him alive. The 
younger one continued in the city, living strictly on the Gra- 
ham system. His heath improved very much indeed during 
the summer, and he had not the least symptom of cholera, 
nor any other disease. Very respectfully yours, 

EDMUND VAN YORX. 
93, Clinton St., New York, Jan. 26, 1833. 

Sir, — Having been relieved, by your system of diet, from 
a miserable state of health with which I had been afflicted 
for years, I continued to live strictly on your system through 
the cholera season, making Graham bread the principal arti- 
cle of my food : and through the whole sickness eating fruit 
freely ; taking care, however, to get good fruit. I enjoyed 
excellent health through the season, without having a single 
premonitory symptom of cholera, or an unwell hour : nor 
have I had an hour's indisposition since : and at present, I 
enjoy the most perfect health. 

Yours with respect, 

S. VAN YORX. 

No 268, William St. New York, June 17, 1833. 

Sir, — After having been afflicted with miserable health for 
many years, I was induced to adopt your system of diet ; and 
by degrees became more and more strict in my regimen, till 
I got on to a diet of Graham bread and rain water, exclusive- 
ly. This regimen I observed rigorously through the whole 
cholera season, and not only became wholly relieved from all 
my pains and ailments, but recovered, and enjoyed the most 
entire and perfect health ; feeling strong, and active, and 
cheerful. My sleep was as sweet as a babe's ; and when I 
rose in the morning, I always felt fresh, and clear, and vigo- 
rous, and sprightly, as ever I did in my boyhood. During the 
cholera season, I was very much among the sick of that ter- 
rible disease. Several times a day, I visited a family who oc ? 



99 

cupied a house belonging to me, (No. 02, James St.,) and of 
which five members died. I stood over the beds of the sick, 
handled their bodies, assisted in taking care of them, &c. 
and after the house was deserted, and others were afraid to 
enter it, I went into the house, took up the beds, clothes, 
and other things appertaining to the rooms, from which the 
dead bodies had been removed, and carried them out of the 
house ; and was there three or four times a day, handling 
the things, &c. After this I visited several other families 
who were sick of the same disease, — -sat beside the sick by 
the hour, watched with them, rubbed them, lifted them, foe.; 
yet through the whole cholera season, I had not the least 
touch of the complaint, nor the slightest indisposition of any 
kind. Yours, &c. DAVID I. BURGER, 

New York, Jan. 2, 1833. Corner of Mott and Pell St. 

Sir, — Having been relieved from chronic disease of long 
standing, and restored to good health by adopting, pretty rig- 
idly, your system of plain and simple diet ; myself and wife 
continued on the same regimen through the cholera season, 
and enjoyed the best of health, without a symptom of that or 
any other disease, until the cholera season was nearly over, 
when we were induced to dine on fresh lamb. This brought 
upon me a diarrhoea and severe pain in the breast ; my wife 
was more severely handled than I was ; but by timely atten- 
tion to our disorder, we were soon restored to health. A sin- 
gle dose of castor oil was all we required ; and that is all the 
disease I have had, and all the medicine I have taken since 
I adopted your system, which is now two years ; during 
which time I have enjoyed most excellent health. 
Respectfully yours, 

HENRY R. PIERCY, 
Office of the Genius of Temperance. 

New York, June 15, 1833. 

ShY,— Benjamin Tytler, who is, and has been for a con- 
siderable time, in my employ, has lived many years according 
to your strictest principles, and enjoyed remarkably fine health 
and spirits. He is now in his sixtieth year, and is still quite 
active and elastic About five years ago he went to England, 
where he staid five or six weeks. While there, he used ani- 
mal food, which, he says, brought on a severe disorder of the 
bowels, and caused him considerable sickness. He has used 
no animal food since, but lived entirely on vegetable food in 
its simplest forms. During the cholera last summer, he en- 



100 

joyed perfect health : and hearing it often asserted that the ' 
" Graham system " would not answer in cholera times, he ; L 
used almost daily to walk through and about the Five Points, I 
where the disease was raging in its most malignant and de- | 
structive character. He was often asked why he thus unne- i 
cessarily exposed himself His reply was, u I wish to try j 
the Graham system fairly : they say it will not answer iri 
cholera times, and I wish to see whether it will or not." The 
old gentleman, however, had not the least symptom of the 
disease during the season. Yours, Etc. 

DANIEL FANSHAW. 
New York, Jan. 19, 1833. 

Sir — In the autumn of 1818 I spent three months at Ba* 
tavia, in the island of Java in the East Indies, where, by the 
use of bad water or some other means, my bowels became 
much disordered, and soon after I left there, a very trouble- 
some diarrhoea set in, and, in spite of every thing I could do, 
it became an established chronic disorder, which has afflicted 
me with more or less severity and constancy ever since, till I 
strictly adopted the system of diet which you teach in your 
lectures; since which time — now about one year — I have 
not been troubled with that unpleasant complaint. Conscious, 
however, of this predisposition of my body to bowel com- 
plaints, I was fully apprehensive of my liability to suffer an 
attack of cholera, while that disease was prevailing among 
us, and therefore, while I carefully aimed to take all proper 
measures to preserve my life and health, I at the same time 
endeavored to hold myself in readiness for any event. I lived 
strictly on what is called the " Graham System, 55 and, 
through the goodness of Divine Providence, I went through 
the sickly season, amidst uncommon cares and anxieties of 
business, without being at all disturbed in my own body by 
the cholera. Yours truly, 

WILLIAM GOODELL, 
Office of the Genius of Temperance, 

New York, June 17, 1833. 

Esteemed Friend, — After having been sorely afflicted, for 
nearly thirty years, with a chronic diarrhoea, which was at 
times so severe, that it often confined me to my bed, and 
sometimes brought me extremely low, I have been so much 
benefited by thy system of diet and regimen, that I was 
enabled to remain in the city through the cholera season, and 
not only to enjoy an entire immunity from that disease, but 



101 

also, by virtue of ray simple and salutary diet, to enjoy bet- 
ter health through the summer and autumn, than I had done 
before for more than twenty years. P. CORL1ES, 

New York, June 17, 1833. No. 86, Madison Street. 

Sir, — I arrived in this country from Scotland, in Novem- 
ber, 1831, in a very impaired state of health. I was torment- 
ed with continual head-ache, and was extremely weak ; and 
was so costive that I was obliged to take cathartic medicine 
every day. As often as once a month, or six weeks, I was 
severely afflicted with diarrhoea, which hung on a week or 
ten days, and was exceedingly debilitating. My spirits were 
dreadfully depressed, and my miseries were very great. These 
difficulties, which had troubled me for some time in my own 
country, increased upon me here, and my wretchedness was 
intolerable, when I commenced attending your lectures, in 
April, 1832, and soon after began to live according to your 
dietetic rules for invalids. In a very short time after the 
adoption of this regimen, my complaints were all removed, 
and my health restored. During the cholera season I board- 
ed in a section of the city where the cholera prevailed to a 
considerable extent ; and there was much of that terrible dis- 
ease, also, where I was employed as an engineer; and most 
of the company employed with me were more or less troubled 
with it. The people in the house where I boarded were con- 
stantly complaining and sick, but through the whole season I 
remained perfectly well, and had not the least indisposition, 
nor need of a particle of medicine. During the sickness I 
lived entirely on Graham bread and water, and occasionally 
fruit. I increased much in strength, and became quite vigor- 
ous, and able to perform much labor without fatigue. 
Yours, with sincere respect, 

N. York, Feb. 16, 1833. JAMES WHITELAW. 

I could multiply these testimonials to a hundred, from the 
statements which I have now on hand, received from persons 
of the most unquestionable veracity; but I have already giv- 
en enough to satisfy every candid reader that the hue and cry 
about the " Grahamites 5 all dying with the cholera, " was not 
only without any foundation in truth, but was directly con- 
trary to the truth. 

In selecting the testimonials that I have given, from the 
large number of statements which I have on hand, it will be 
observed that I have in many instances presented the cases 
of those whose previous health and state of body rendered 
them peculiarly liable to the action of any morbific causes 
which might induce cholera. 
9 



REVIEW OF BEAUMONT'S EXPERIMENTS. 



[Originally published in the Graham Journal.] 



Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the 
Physiology of Digestion . By William Beaumont, M. D. 
Surgeon of the United States Army. 

•a 

[If the reader will study Dr. Beaumont's book carefully, he 
will find that every important physiological principle estab- 
lished by " Beaumont's Experiments and Observations," was 
taught by Mr. Graham in his public lectures for more than 
three years before this book appeared, and was published in 
his lecture on " Epidemic Diseases" several months before 
the work of Dr. Beaumont was issued from the press. Be- 
fore this latter work made its appearance, Mr. Graham was 
ridiculed for teaching these very principles, and advancing 
things contrary to the established doctrines of the schools. 
—Editor.] 

Of all the complicated and wonderful operations of the hu- 
man system, there is, probably, no one function which has 
been the subject of so many speculations, theories, and ex- 
periments, and of so great diversity of opinions, as that of 
Gastric Digestion. Hippocrates and others of the ancients 
supposed that the digestion of food in the stomach is a kind 
of putrefaction. — Galen, and others of his school, regarded 
the process as a species of concoction, like the ripening and 
softening of fruit under the summer's sun ; and far more 
recently, Pringle and others have supposed it is a process of 
fermentation, uniting heat and putrefaction ; — while Borelli 
and others have asserted that digestion is effected solely by 
the mechanical action or triturating power of the stomach ; 
and for this purpose they estimated the muscular power of the 
human stomach as equal at least to 117,080 pounds. Boer- 
haave combined the theory of mechanical pressure with the 
chemical one of concoction. Cheselden was one of the first 
who started the idea of a solvent fluid or Gastric Juice, and 
after him, Haller, Reaumur, and Spallanzani followed out 
and finally established the doctrine, at least so far as to render 
it the generally received opinion of the schools. 

Spallanzani, in order to guard against the supposed triturat- 



103 

ing effects of the stomach, filled small perforated tubes with 
meat previously boiled and masticated, and forced animals to 
swallow these tubes; and on examining them after they had 
remained for some time in the stomach, he found the meat 
considerably softened, — always more or less, according to 
the length of time and the size of the holes ill the tubes. 
He also tried various experiments, by introducing into the 
stomach cloth bags containing food, which was also softened 
and sometimes pressed through the cloth and the bags left 
empty. He then tried a series of experiments wit lithe gas- 
tric| juice out of the stomach, and asserted that, by mixing 
food with a quantity of this fluid in a phial, and keeping it 
for several hours at a temperature of 100 deg. Fahrenheit, 
the food was digested. 

By these various experiments, the doctrine of digestion by 
a solvent fluid of the stomach was considered fully establish- 
ed. Other experiments, however, were thought to afford 
sufficient grounds for skepticism in regard to the truth of the 
Spallanzanian theory. 

Carminati asserted that he digested veal with a little salt 
and pure water at a temperature of 100 deg. Fahrenheit : — 
That the veal was partly dissolved, and he employed the de- 
canted liquor in similar experiments, until, at length, he pro- 
cured a fluid possessing solvent qualities, as active as those 
of the gastric juice. Sturve and Maquart declared that they 
made an artificial solvent of a weak solution of ammonia, 
which had the properties attributed to the gastric juice. 
Montegre said that saliva with a drop of vinegar dissolved 
the food immersed in it. John Hunter declared that he pro- 
duced the same effect by immersing meat in the pus of an 
abscess. Calves-foot jelly, at the temperature of the living 
stomach, was also affirmed to have the same effect on animal 
matter. Tiedeman and Gmelin said that they found dilute 
acetic acid — dilute hydro-chloric acid — a weak solution of 
acetate of ammonia severally dissolved more or less of most 
animal substances used as food. 

Sir George Fordyce, after a careful review of the experi- 
ments of Spallanzani, Reaumur and others, confidently as- 
serted that chyme could not be produced out of the living 
stomach. In this opinion Chaussier and Magendie agreed 
with him. Montegre, after extensive and varied experiments, 
asserted that the only fluid of the stomach concerned in di- 
gestion, was saliva swallowed from the mouth, and slightly 
acidulated in the stomach. Wilson Philip, after a great va- 
riety of experiments, declared that the contents of the stom- 
&ah are never permeated throughout by the gastric juice, and 



104 

that the surface of the mass only, which comes in contact 
with the inner surface of the stomach, is digested ; while the 
more central portion remains entirely unchanged ; and that, 
if the chy milled portion of the food which lies next to the 
inner surface of the stomach, is not removed, so as to let 
another portion come in contact with the coat of the stomach, 
digestion cannot go on ; and also, that if new portions of food 
are received into the stomach, before that organ has wholly 
disposed of its previously received contents, the new portion 
becomes enveloped in the centre of the old, and remains un- 
changed till the old is digested and removed. 

Philip, Brodie, Broughton, JBreschet, Edwards and seve- 
ral others, asserted that digestion is completely suspended in 
the living stomach in perfect health, by a division of the 
pneumo-gastric nerves, while others contended that the divis- 
ion of these nerves only suspends for a time but does not de- 
stroy the digestive powers of the stomach. 

Some of the ablest physiologists of our own country era- 
v braced the views of Montegre in regard to the fluid of the 
stomach, and denied the gastric secretion of a solvent fluid 
such as was asserted by Spallanzani and his followers, and to 
establish themselves in their position, they arrayed a host of 
facts admitted by their antagonists. 

Whole grains of barley in perforated tubes, remained two 
days in the stomach of a turkey, unaffected, except that they 
were slightly swollen ; whole grains of corn, in linen bags, 
remained three days in the stomach of a frog unchanged, 
but when beans, peas, and bread, well mashed or masticated, 
were introduced, in two days the bags were found empty; — 
the cohesion between the particles of the enclosed food be- 
ing destroyed, they passed through the linen. When a piece 
of flesh or more coherent articles were employed, the tubes 
or bags did not become empty; their contents being merely 
reduced to a pulp ; and in all cases where tubes were used, 
the softening was in proportion to the size of the holes which 
suffered the energies of the stomach to act on the contents of 
the tubes. It was observed also, that, in Spallanzani's ex- 
periments with gastric juice out of the stomach ; First — In 
most, if not all cases, in which a decided change took place, 
it was either bread or a portion of flesh which was subjected 
to the action of the gastric juice. Secondly — The flesh was, 
in general, previously boiled and afterwards well mashed or 
chewed. Thirdly — No change was produced unless the gas- 
tric fluid was heated to one hundred or one hundred and two 
degrees Fahrenheit ; — the softening which the bread or flesh 
underwent being always in proportion to the degree of heat 



105 

beyond this point. Cold gastric juice being perfectly inert. 
Fourthly — In general, it required from ten to fifteen, and in 
some cases forty-three hours, before any considerable change 
in the food was produced by the gasrtic juice out of the stom- 
ach. Fifthly — There is no evidence that the softened food 
approached in its chemical character to chyme. 

It was admitted that when bread and boiled flesh and a 
few other substances were chewed or triturated or mashed, 
and immersed in the fluids taken from the stomach of living 
animals, and raised to a temperature of one hundred degrees 
and over of Fahrenheit, and soaked in that fluid at that tem- 
perature for hours, they did undergo a softening or disinte- 
gration, but not from any peculiar solvent properties in the 
fluids employed. A variety of artificial solvent fluids, it was 
contended, would produce the same effect, as had beeo 
abundantly proved by experiments. 

It was asserted that many physiologists had been led into 
a great mistake by not discriminating between the reduction 
of the food to a pulpy state, and that entire and perfect 
change which takes place in natural digestion ; — that they 
seemed to treat the matter as if they supposed no other change 
takes place than a change of consistency, from solid to fluid; 
whereas, there is an entire change in its chemical qualities, 
All alimentary substances, except liquid albumen, it was af- 
firmed, undergo, in the stomach, a complete transformation, 
approaching the nature of albumen. Whatever the kind of 
food, albumen predominates in the chyme. 

In order tp produce the change of the food into chyme, it 
must come in contact with the mucous membrane of the stom- 
ach. 

The change is always from the circumference to the cen- 
tre of the mass. A thin layer is first digested and carried 
forward by the muscular action, along the greater curvature 
from the cordiac portion of the stomach towards the pylorus, 
and when this is not removed digestion ceases. Therefore, 
whatever suspends or disturbs the muscular action by which 
the already digested food is carried forward into the intestines, 
or prevents the successive contact of the aliment with the in* 
ner coat of the stomach, stops digestion. 

In confirmation of this, Broussais states the case of a man 
who could no longer digest his food, yet rejected nothing by 
the mouth, although his stomach was always full. Dissection 
after death showed that his stomach had no longer a muscu- 
lar coat. Its muscular tissue had undergone completely the 
fatty degeneration. 

Chynviflcstion is so intimately dependent on the health an<£ 



106 

integrity of the stomach, that the most trifling circumstances 
capable of impairing the energies of that organ, either di- 
rectly or indirectly, disturb the process, or totally suspend it, 
even after it has fully commenced. 

The division of the pneumo-gastric nerves will completely 
suspend digestion. Care, anxiety, grief, joy, anger, close 
mental application, violent exercise of the body after a meal, 
eating too fast or too much — concentrated food — nausea, even 
when excited by imagination — and merely leaning the epigas- 
trium against the edge of a table or any other hard surface, 
will impair and even suspend digestion .And yet it is assert- 
ed that a vital process so easily disturbed, can be accomplished 
under the most disadvantageous circumstances, out of the liv- 
ing stomach, in inorganic vases. The truth is, that food 
placed in all the chemical circumstances which can be con- 
ceived similar to those in which it is placed in the living 
stomach, w r ill never be converted into chyme. This has been 
long maintained, and never disproved.* 

With this array of facts before them many eminent physi- 
ologists, with confidence advanced the opinion that the Spal- 
lanzanian notion of a solvent gastric juice had no foundation 
in truth ; but that gastric digestion or chymification is a vital 
process, depending on the peculiar properties and powers of 
the tissues of the stomach, rendering it indispensably neces- 
sary that the food should come in contact with the inner sur- 
face of that organ, to produce that genuine vital change or 
transformation which alone can properly be called chymifica- 
tion. They did not deny the presence of a fluid in the stom- 
ach, nor the maceration of the food, preparatory to the gen- 
uine vital digestion or assimilation which follows. But they 
considered it questionable, whether that fluid is a secretion 
of the stomach, or merely the swallowed saliva; and wholly 
denied that it possesses any of that peculiar and powerful 
solvent property attributed to it by the Spallanzanian school. 

On the other hand again, it was asserted that if animals 
are killed when the stomach is full and the process of diges- 
tion going on, the gastric juice will perforate the coats of the 
stomach. 

Dr. Carswell declared that he had killed rabbits by a blow 
on the head, after a full meal, when digestion might be ex- 
pected to be at its full activity ; and suspended them by the 
hind-legs for nine or ten hours ; — that afterwards, on open- 
ing them, he invariably found the great curvature of the 
stomach more or less altered, according to the interval which 

♦See Appendix toBroussais' Physiology second or third edition. Phil- 
adelphia, Carey & Lea. 



107 

had elapsed after death ; — the coats of the stomach being 
either softened or completely perforated ; and in the latter 
case, the softening often extended to the liver, the spleen, 
and the diaphragm, yet the food in the stomach was some- 
times not at all digested, and sometimes a very little. The 
blood remaining in the vessels of the destroyed parts was 
black, and the liquid remaining in the stomach very acrid. 
Z Dr. Carswell concluded that these effects were produced by 
the gastric juice, in its natural condition and character. 
While in opposition to these views it was contended by others, 
that all these softenings and perforations of the stomach were 
the result of disease during life. The latter opinion is prob- 
ably incorrect, and the former one is unquestionably so. It 
is now fully proved that cold gastric juice has about as little 
solvent effect on flesh and other articles of food, as cold wa- 
ter has; and even when at the natural temperature of the 
healthy living stomach, it acts on masses of flesh out of the 
stomach very slowly indeed. In all Dr. CarswelTs experiments 
no change took place in the coats of the stomach, until the 
animal had been dead some hours, and the contents of the 
stomach had become reduced to nearly or quite the tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere, and therefore, too low for the activi- 
ty of any energetic solvent power in the fluids of the stomach. 
Two principles were probably concerned in the production 
of the phenomena observed by Dr. Carswell. It has been 
said that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridic- 
ulous; so also it may with truth be said that there is a high 
state of vital activity which borders .on disorganization, at 
which, if vitality be suddenly destroyed, disorganization is 
astonishingly rapid. The state of the stomach in the early 
stages of digestion, is very peculiar, — its blood-vessels are 
full, approaching to congestion, and in all respects there is an 
accumulation of vital energy and activity in that important 
organ. A sudden destruction of life at this moment, must 
therefore necessarily put the stomach (and especially that 
portion of it generally found softened or perforated, in the 
experiments) in a condition prepared for rapid disorganiza- 
tion and decay. In the second place, the fluid, or rather the 
contents of the stomach, had probably degenerated into a 
more intense degree of acidity than is natural to the healthy 
gastric juice of the living stomach ; and it is well known that 
the acid principle is very powerful in softening and dissolving 
the animal solids. There is therefore no reason to believe 
that the softenings and perforations of the stomach observed 
s by Dr. Carswell, were affected by the gastric juice, as such, 
in its true and natural character. 

In this state of the controversy as to the existence or non- 



108 

existence of a fluid secreted by the stomach, possessing the 
solvent powers attributed to it by Spallanzani and his follow- 
ers, Dr. Beaumont, of the United States' Army, published in 
the close of the year 1833, his " Experiments and Observa- 
tions on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion/' 
These experiments " were commenced in 1825 and continued 
with various interruptions till 1833." The subject of them 
was Alexis St. Martin, a Canadian, of French descent, who, 
in 1822, when about eighteen years of age, with a good con- 
stitution and robust health, was accidentally wounded by the 
discharge of a musket, the contents of which were received 
in his left side, and carried away the parts so as to wound 
the lungs and stomach very seriously. The very remarkable 
result was that the man recovered his health ; but in the heal- 
ing of the parts the lacerated coats of the stomach attached 
themselves to the lips of the external wound, and formed an 
artificial aperture to the stomach, so that this organ could be 
examined at any time by pushing in a valve which the stom- 
ach had formed to close the aperture so as to prevent its con- 
tents from escaping thereat. 

With advantages for gastric experiments never before en- 
joyed, Dr. Beaumont applied himself to this interesting in- 
quiry with a degree of assiduity and patience highly com- 
mendable. The work which he has published as the result 
of his experiments and observations, is interesting, and, in 
many respects, valuable. But to a truly scientific physiolo- 
gist, it is very evident that Dr. Beaumont was not qualified to 
make the best of his peculiar advantages. He seems neither 
to have commenced nor pursued his experiments with very 
enlarged views on the subject ; and he was evidently more 
intent on demonstrating the existence and the solvent power 
of the " gastric juice M than in ascertaining the true physiol- 
ogy of the stomach. The opportunities which he enjoyed, 
and the time he devoted to these experiments were such as 
would have enabled a profound physiologist of enlarged views 
and of acute powers of observation, to produce a work far 
more valuable to physiology, pathology and dietetics, than 
th >ne now before us. Nevertheless the work is of very 
considerable value to those who can accurately understand it, 
for it contains a great many interesting and valuable facts, 
and fully establishes many exceedingly important points, in 
opposition to generally received opinions. Still, however, as 
a popular work, to be placed in the hands of the general 
reader, and especially in the hands of the dyspeptic, it is very 
questionable whether it will not do more harm than good. 

Dr. Beaumont's book has, we trust, forever put to rest all 
controversy concerning the existence of the " gastric juice." 



109 

He has fully ascertained that, on the ingestion of food, the 
stomach rapidly secretes a fluid which, by the " churning mo- 
tion " of the organ, is freely mixed with the ingesta ; and 
it is very evident also, that this fluid possesses so much of a 
solvent power, as to reduce the various kinds of food, receiv- 
ed into the stomach, into a fluid or nearly fluid mass, appa- 
rently of a homogeneous character. But whether this solu- 
tion is real chymification, or only a proximate state to chymi- 
fication is a question yet to be decided. Excepting, therefore, 
the proof that the stomach does actually and copiously secrete 
a fluid which is mixed with the food in the process of diges- 
tion, and which, with a quality peculiar to itself, reduces the 
food to a common state of fluidity, Dr. Beaumont's work 
has thrown little light on the nature of chymification. Phys- 
iologists will continue to differ as widely as they have done, in 
their opinions on this point ; and all will quote Dr. Beaumont's 
Experiments to prove their doctrines. The Chemical School 
will continue to assert with Spallanzani, that gastric diges- 
tion is purely a chemical process effected wholly by the sol- 
vent fluid of the stomach : while the Vitalists, on the other 
hand, will still insist, that the gastric juice is a vital secre- 
tion, — that, as such, it is endowed with its peculiar proper- 
ties, — that its peculiar nature, properties and efficiency are 
immediately and necessarily dependent on the vital powers 
of the living body, and particularly on the vital powers of the 
stomach ; and therefore that it does not possess the intrinsic 
independent power of changing food into real and true chyme 
out of the living stomach, and that even in the living stom- 
ach it probably does nothing more than to disintegrate or dis- 
solve the mass of food, in a manner peculiar to itself, prepar- 
atory to genuine chymification, which is purely a vital pro- 
cess, effected only by the living stomach itself. And cer- 
tainly there is not a single experiment nor fact presented 
in Dr. Beaumont's book which militates against the latter 
opinion : while there are, at least, many inferences to be le- 
gitimately drawn from it, which are very adverse to the chem- 
ical theory. Granting all that Dr. B. asserts of the peculiar 
solvent and antiseptic power of the gastric juice, and what is 
proved ? Why, that the living stomach secretes from the liv- 
ing blood, a fluid which cannot be perfectly imitated by any 
artificial composition ; and which, therefore, possesses pro- 
perties and powers, both as a solvent and antiseptic, peculiar 
to itself, and consequently produces effects, both in and out 
of the stomach, peculiar to itself; — and perhaps essentially 
different, even out of the living stomach, from the effects of 
any artificial composition, made in imitation of gastric juice, 



110 

But does this prove the solution of food, either without or 
within the stomach, by the genuine gastric juice, to be real 
and true chymification l Most evidently not ! 

According to Wilson Philip, the true chyme is only to be 
found in a very thin layer in contact svith the inner surface 
of the stomach, and is gradually carried forward to the pylo- 
ric orifice, — becoming more and more perfectly changed as 
it advances, till it passes into the small intestines ; and if it 
be not thus removed, so as to permit another portion of food 
to come in contact with the surface of the stomach, digestion 
or chymification ceases. Now all this may be strictly true, 
consistently with the experiments and observations of Dr. 
Beaumont. There is therefore nothing in all his experiments 
which proves that genuine chymification can be effected out 
of the living stomach ; and nothing which proves that the 
chymifying change is not effected wholly by the vital powers 
of that organ. 

Dr. Beaumont is too fond of his chemical speculations. 
He would lead one to suppose that, with a little skill and 
management, an artificial process might be arranged, by 
which chyme, chyle, blood, bone, muscle, nerve, &,c. might 
all be produced in the chemist's laboratory, entirely inde- 
pendent of nature's established economy. Heat and elec- 
tricity or the magnetic fluid would set this organized machine 
into operation, and thus we should have a living man, produc- 
ed wholly by the action of chemical agents and the play of 
chemicai affinities. / q 

In some respects, Dr. Beaumont's book is a very danger- 
ous one, and is fitted widely to mislead the Faculty , as well 
as the invalids who may read it or refer to it for dietetic in- 
struction. If chymification is effected wholly by the gastric 
juice, — if it is purely a chemical instead of a vital process, 
«-~if the vital powers of the stomach are no farther concerned 
in it than merely to secrete the solvent fluid, then the physi- 
cian, or his patient who is just recovering from a fit of sick- 
ness, or is grievously afflicted with dyspepsia, has only to 
turn to Dr. Beaumont's scale of the digestibility of different 
kinds of food, and ascertain what articles passed through the 
stomach in the shortest time, or yielded most readily to the 
action of the gastric juice out of the stomach, and whether 
it be soused tripe, pig's feet, or whatever else it may be, it is 
to be selected as the most proper food for the feeble invalid 
and those of weak stomachs because it is most easily digest* 
ed. 

But this notion, which already too extensively prevails,, is 
|H the very f4ce of physiological truth. Nothing is more 



Ill 

certain than that many articles of food which pass most 
rapidly through the stomach cause a much greater expendi- 
ture of the functional powers of that organ, than other arti- 
cles which pass more slowly through it. Indeed, it may be 
regarded as a general law, that those kinds of food, appro- 
priate for man, which naturally pass slowly through the sto- 
mach, are digested with the least vital expense and exhaus- 
tion of the organ, and most slowly wear out its functional 
powers ; and therefore, are not only best calculated to pro- 
mote the most vigorous condition of the alimentary organs, 
but also, are most conducive to the general welfare of the 
system. Thus, fresh beef, because it is generally supposed 
to be easily digested, has long been prescribed as the most 
suitable food for dyspeptics ; whereas, the truth is that the 
free use of beef or flesh meat always — in civic life- — tends to 
induce dyspepsy ; and no man ever was, nor ever can be cur- 
ed of that complaint by virtue of flesh-eating. While, on the 
other hand, vegetables and fruits are generally prohibited in 
such cases, because they are supposed to be hard of diges- 
tion, but it is scarcely possible for those who subsist on a 
well-regulated vegetable diet, and are reasonably temperate 
in quantity, to be dyspeptic; and no food whatever, will so 
soon restore a broken-down dyspeptic stomach to a healthy 
and vigorous state. In relation to this point, Dr. Beaumont 
has made some very just remarks, — " The quality of nutri- 
ment is of considerable importance in dietetic regulations. 
Bulk is perhaps nearly as necessary to the articles of diet 
as the nutrient principle. They should be so managed that 
one should be in proportion to the other. Too highly nutri- 
tive diet is probably as fatal to the prolongation of life and 
health, as that which contains ail insufficient quantity of 
nourishment." P. 39. But the Doctor is greatly mistaken if 
he supposes that carnivorous animals only, are injured by 
concentrated food. Extensive experiment has fully demon- 
strated that herbivorous animals suffer equally from the same 
cause. 

In attempting to explain the Physiology of Hunger, Dr., 
Beaumont has come at least as near to the truth, as any one 
whose opinions on the subject had previously been present- 
ed to the public through the medium of the press; yet there 
are some very important facts which powerfully militate 
against his theory. " My impression, 1 ' says he, (p. 57, &c.) 
" is that hunger is produced by a distension of the gastric 
vessels, or that apparatus, whether vascular or glandular, 
which secretes the gastric juice ; and is believed to be the 
effect of repletion by this fluid. " " A distension by the gas- 



112 

trie juice of a particular set of vessels or glands, constitut- 
ing, in part, the erectile tissue of the villous coat of the sto- 
mach. The sensation varies according to the different de- 
grees or states of distension ; from the simplest desire to the 
most painful sense of hunger ; and is allayed or increased in 
proportion to the application or refusal of alimentary stimu- 
lus to the excretory vessels. The greater the distension of 
the vessels the more acute will be the pain ; hence the dif- 
ference between a short and a protracted fast." The doctor 
considers it almost a matter "of demonstration that a large 
quantity of gastric juice must be contained in appropriate 
vessels, during a fast; ready to obey the call of aliment/' 

" The quiescence and relief from the unpleasant sensations, 
which are experienced as soon as the vessels are emptied, 
are, I think," continues he, " additional proofs of my opin- 
ion." 

This theory is one step removed from that of gastric juice 
in the stomach corroding its inner surface, when the digest- 
ed food has all passed from it ; and thus causing hunger. 
The doctor's theory is, of course, the more plausible now, 
since it is demonstrated that, at such times, there is no gas- 
tric juice in the stomach. Nevertheless, most of the objec- 
tions which lie against the one, bear with equal force against 
the other. If hunger be a sensation produced by the disten- 
sion of the vessels containing the gastric juice ; and if the 
longer the fast, the greater will be the distension and the 
more pressing and painful the hunger; how is it that hunger, 
which occurs from physiological habitude, at regular peri- 
ods, according to the individual's customary hour for eat- 
ing, will subside and totally disappear, if the usual hour of 
eating be permitted to pass by, without taking food? unless, 
indeed, the wants of the system for nourishment are real and 
pressing; and even then the same thing will take place to 
some degree ! Will it be said that there is a re-absorption of 
the gastric juice, and a consequent abatement of hunger ? 
This is wholly an assumption; of the truth of which there is 
no proof — no evidence. But again, if tC hunger is caused 
purely by the distension of the vessels containing the gas- 
tric juice ;" and if " the sensation varies according to the 
different degrees or states of distension ; from the simplest 
desire to the most painful sense," why is it that the sense of 
hunger is always more or less painful and imperious, accord- 
ing as the customary food is more or less stimulating in pro- 
portion to the nourishment which it affords. Thus for illus- 
tration ; if we select three men of regular habits, each tak- 
ing his three regular meals a day — one subsisting on pure 



113 

I vegetable food, simply and plainly prepared, the second par- 
taking freely of flesh meat, without conciiment, the third par* 
taing freely of flesh meat highly seasoned with salt, pepper, 
mustard, &,c. — now, other things being equal in the circum- 
stances and conditions of these men, if food be withheld 
from them at their usual time of eating, the sense of hunger 
will always be much more painful and imperious in the second 
than in the first, and still more so in the third. Are these differ- 
ent degrees of the intensity of the sense of hunger in the three 
individuals owing to the different degrees of distension in the 
vessels containing the gastric juice? Most certainly not ! 
Furthermore, it is well known to physiologists, that, in the 
artificial states of civic life at least, the sense of hunger often 
occurs with much intensity when the vital economy is so far 
from actually standing in need of a new ingestion of aliment- 
ary matter, that nothing would be more beneficial to every 
organ and part of the system than a temporary abstinence 
from food. 

There are, also, other facts in point, which are not easily- 
got over. Here are several individuals assembled around a 
table loaded with sumptuous fare, — their hunger is powerful 
— they contemplate the repast with eager desire — their ap- 
petite is sharply whetted — the savory viands are smoking on 
their plates; and now they are just about to commence their 
meal ; — at this moment several letters are thrown upon the 
table. One reads that a steamboat has burst her boilers, 
and that his beloved wife or child whom he was hourly ex- 
pecting home, is scalded to death ! — his hunger is entirely 
gone in an instant. Another reads an insulting communica- 
tion which throws him into a violent fit of anger, and his 
hunger is all gone. Another reads that a dreadful pesti- 
lence has broken out, and is committing awful ravages in 
the neighborhood ; a paroxysm of fear at once destroys his 
hunger. Another reads that his ship, which he believed to 
have been captured by the pirates, has just entered the har- 
bor with a rich freight ; — overwhelming joy annihilates his 
hunger. Another takes a pinch of snuff and his hunger is 
gone. Another puts a piece of tobacco in his mouth, and 
his hunger is destroyed. Another dissolves some emetic 
tartar, stirs it up, and contemplates swallowing it, and his 
hunger disappears. 

These are not merely fanciful suppositions ; — they are 
real cases which have happened thousands of times. But 
how are these cases met by Dr.JSeaumont's theory? — Is his 
gastric juice re-absorbed in an instant 1 — or does it instan- 
taneously gush from its distended vessels into the stomach ? 
10 



114 

Neither ! What then becomes of the sense of distension in 
the vessels containing the gastric juice, which constitutes 
the feeling of hunger 1 — Dr. Beaumont's theory is at fault 
here ! — nor here only ! — many other facts might easily be 
adduced to prove its falsity. The Doctor has not yet got 
hold of the true physiology of hunger. His chemical and 
mechanical principles will not answer for the solution of 
vital phenomena. The true theory of hunger has not yet 
found its way to the press. 

In relation to the gastric juice, there is one other point in 
Dr. Beaumont's theory, which is not only incorrect, but 
which does not even harmonize with his own facts. 

"The quantity of gastric juice/ 5 he says, " either con- 
tained in its proper vessels, or in a state of preparation in 
the circulating fluids, is believed to be in exact proportion to 
the quantity of aliment required for the due supply of the 
system. If more than an ordinary quantity of food be taken, 
a part of it will be left undissolved in the stomach, and pro- 
duce the usual unpleasant symptoms of indigestion." P. 65, 

Again ; — Cl the stomach is not designed to receive more 
food than can be duly mixed with the gastric solvent already 
in its proper vessels, or in a state of preparation in the blood 
vessels." P. 71. 

Again; — <( the gastric juice does not accumulate in the 
cavity of the stomach, until alimentary matter is required, 
and excites its vessels to discharge their contents, for the 
immediate purposes of digestion. It then begins to exude 
from its proper vessels ; and increases in proportion to the 
quantity of aliment naturally required and received." Pp. 
85, 86. 

Again; u there is always disturbance of the stomach when 
more food has been received than there is gastric juice to act 
on it." P. 140. 

Now if the doctor's notion be true, that there is a fixed 
law of relation between the quantity of gastric juice in its 
proper vessels and in a state of preparation, and the quantity 
of food naturally required, how is it that he could so fre- 
quently draw off from the stomach, two ounces of gastric 
juice, and yet, so soon afterwards, his subject take into his 
stomach as much food as the real wants of his system re- 
quired, and digest it in due time, without manifesting any 
inconvenience from the loss of the two ounces of gastric 
juice 1 — And how is it, that, on some occasions, two hours 
before the time of the meal, and before hunger had begun 
to be felt, the Doctor found such a copious flow of the gas- 
tric juice ? when on other occasions, immediately preceding 



115 

the time of the meal, he could with difficulty procure even 
a small quantity ; and still the stomach would receive its full 
supply of food, and readily digest it, without evincing any 
lack of gastric juice ? 

It is not very easy to perceive how these and many other 
questions which might be asked, can be answered consist- 
ently with Dr. Beaumont's theory of hunger, gastric diges- 
tion, &c. The truth is, there is no more a fixed relation 
between the quantity of gastric juice which the stomach is 
capable of secreting, and the quantity of food naturally 
required by the system, than there is between the quantity 
of fluid which the salivary glands are capable of secreting, 
and the quantity of food naturally required. In both cases, 
the secreting function is variously affected by exciting and 
depressing causes. In both cases the function may be 
pushed to such an extent as to cause a temporary exhaustion 
of the functional power of the secreting organs; and in both 
cases the organs secrete immediately from the arterial blood 
their appropriate fluids as they are demanded, and can con- 
tinue to secrete those fluids as long as a due supply of arte- 
rial blood is received, and the secreting power of the or- 
gans is sustained. There is not the slightest anatomical 
nor physiological evidence that the stomach has any vessels 
which receive and retain the gastric juice preparatory for 
digestion, and the distension of which, by the gastric juice 
causes the sense of hunger. 

As an argument against the notion which had been enter- 
tained by many physiologists, that when the chyme has 
passed from the stomach, and previous to the reception of 
another meal, a quantity of gastric juice is secreted, and 
remains in a free state in the stomach, preparatory for the 
digestion of the new aliment, Dr. Beaumont says, (p. 138), *Lf 
that in such a case, there would be danger that the gastric 
juice would be weakened, by the introduction of large quan- 
tities of water or other fluids, in the intervals of eating, and 
thus lose its energy and concentrated solvent properties. 
This idea is several times expressed and implied in the 
Doctor's book, and seems to be a very valid one in his own 
mind ; and yet he ought to be well aware that it is a com- 
mon practice, with people of good digestive powers, to drink 
two and even three tumblers of water during the ingestion of 
a single meal ; and not unfrequently do people, at the close 
of a meal, or some few minutes after it, take large draughts 
of water, cider, beer, or some other liquid. In such cases 
the water or the liquid must mix with the gastric juice, in 
some measure at least ; and, according to Dr. Beaumont, 



116 

reduce its energy and concentrated solvent properties. And 
then the stomach must perform an elective function, and 
absorb the water and leave the gastric juice, or it must ab- 
sorb them both, or they must pass together into the small in- 
testines ; or the gastric juice must remain with the water in 
the stomach, to perform the digestive function in its diluted 
state. But if the stomach can perform the elective function 
of absorption, then the Doctor's objection to free gastric 
juice in the stomach before the reception of food, is of no 
force. If the diluted gastric juice is absorbed, or passed 
into the small intestines, and more is secreted for the diges- 
tion of the food, then his idea that the quantity of gastric 
juice, in its appropriate vessels, and in a state of prepara- 
tion in the blood vessels, bears a fixed relation to the quan- 
tity of food demanded by the real wants of the economy, is 
evidently refuted by fact; and if digestion is performed by 
diluted gastric juice, his position is equally disturbed. 

It is undoubtedly true, as the Doctor states, that free gastric 
juice does not accumulate in the cavity of the stomach previ- 
ous to the reception of food ; nor, as a general physiological 
fact, is there any gastric juice secreted before the ingestion 
of food commences. But as soon as a portion of food is re- 
ceived into the stomach, and excites its secreting organs, 
the process of secretion commences, and the gastric juice 
appears on the inner surface of the stomach like prespiration 
on the forehead of a laboring man, and becomes mixed with 
the food as it is carried around the gastric cavity by the mus- 
cular action or " churning motion' 5 of the stomach, When 
considerable fluid is taken with the food during the meal, as 
when tea, coffee, and other liquids, are constantly sipped to 
wash down the food, the gastric juice is less freely secreted 
during the ingestion, and the aqueous fluid is mostly absorb- 
ed before the process of digestion commences. But when 
the meal has been completed, and the process of digestion 
has fully commenced, if a large quantity of water or other 
liquid is received into the stomach, either this organ sud- 
denly contracts upon its contents, and presses them forward 
towards the pyloric orifice, and then by the powerful con- 
traction of some of the circular fibres of its muscular coat, 
brings itself into the form of an hour-glass, confining the 
food in the pyloric end, and retaining the newly received 
fluid in the cardiac or larger end, till the absorbing vessels 
of that region shall take it up and carry it away, or else, the 
newly received fluid mixes with the previously received con- 
tents of the stomach, reducing them to a very diluted state 
and wholly arresting the process of digestion, till the fluicj 



117 

thus received has been absorbed or otherwise removed. — In 
both cases, therefore, the process of digestion is more or less 
disturbed, and in the latter case particularly, it is greatly 
retarded; and in weak, dyspeptic stomachs much oppression 
and distress and derangement of function is often occasioned 
by this cause. — Yet we know that people with healthy and 
vigorous stomachs will indulge in free imbibitions of water, 
during, and immediately following the ingestion of food, with 
apparently little or no inconvenience. 

In regard to the temperature of the stomach, there is 
reason to believe that the artificial aperture in Dr. Beau- 
mont's subject, had a considerable effect. The temperature 
of a perfectly natural and healthy stomach, in a vigorous, 
laboring man, probably ranges from one hundred to one 
hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit. And beyond all 
question, much allowance must be made, in relation to 
many other phenomena observed by Dr. Beaumont, on the 
score of the artificial condition and treatment of the stomach 
on which he experimented. 

On the subject of saliva, Dr. Beaumont talks very loosely 
and evinces his want of physiological science. " Dry food," 
says he, " cannot be swallowed until it receives an admixture 
of a fluid ; whether it be saliva or some other liquor, is not, 
I conceive, a matter of much importance. 55 ic Water will 
answer the purpose nearly as well as saliva. " # * * * " I 
have known many persons to spit freely and constantly, 
whose appetites and digestion were perfect. Those who 
smoke tobacco are constantly discharging large quantities 
of saliva, and yet I am not aware that dyspepsy is more 
common with them than with others." " The legitimate 
and only use of saliva," the Dr. concludes, " is to lubricate 
the food, and to facilitate the passage of the bolus through 
the organs of deglutition." Pp. 68, 69. But Dr. Beaumont 
ought to know that the important salivary apparatus was not 
inserted in the organic machinery of the human system for 
so unimportant a purpose as he attributes to it. In all his 
experiments and observations on this point he evidently con- 
founds the salivary secretion with the mucous secretions of 
the mouth and oesophagus. The truth is that, in a perfectly 
healthy body, the salivary secretion very nearly resembles, 
in properties and powers, the gastric juice and pancreatic 
fluid, and it is not in any degree intended to <c lubricate the 
food," (for this is done by the mucous secretions of the mouth, 
fauces and oesophagus,) but, like the gastric juice, to act on 
it as a solvent ; and when the food is thoroughly masticated, 
and by this process, retained for a considerable time in the 
10* 



118 

mouth, an incipient state of solution takes place, similar id 
that of the stomach and small intestines. And if Dr. Beau* 
mont's notion in regard to the relation between the quantity 
of gastric juice and the quantity of food, were true, he 
would find that all waste of the salivary fluid would be at- 
tended with immediate inconvenience ; but the stomach 
being compelled to make up for the delinquencies of the 
mouth, the evil effect of those delinquencies is seldom if 
ever perceived, and never duly appreciated. 

But enough has been said concerning the objectionable 
parts of Dr. Beaumont's book. It is a far more pleasing 
task to point out its excellences, of which it contains many. 

On the importance of mastication he insists with much 
truth and propriety. 

" Mastication is absolutely necessary to healthy digestion. 
If aliment in large masses be introduced into the stomach, 
though the gastric juice may act upon its surface, chymifi- 
cation will proceed so slowly, that other changes will be 
likely to commence in its substance before it will become 
completely dissolved. Besides, the stomach will not retain 
undigested masses for a long time, without suffering great 
disturbance. It is governed by certain laws with respect to 
aliment. After food has been retained for a certain length 
of time, undigested, say from five. to ten hours, according to 
the healthy or diseased state of the organ, or the quantity 
received into it, it is either rejected by vomiting, or is per- 
mitted to pass into the duodenum and lower bowels, where 
its presence almost invariably produces colic, flatulence, &,c. 
When the stomach is unusually debilitated, food, however, 
is frequently retained for twenty-four hours or more ; and is 
sometimes the cause of most distressing symptoms, producing, 
particularly in children, convulsions and death. I there- 
fore consider mastication as one of the most important pre- 
liminary steps in the process of digestion. " P. 70. 

In his numerous experiments Dr. Beaumont has fully de- 2 
monstrated that the more perfectly the functions of the teeth 
are performed, the more easily and healthfully the function 
of the stomach is accomplished. 

" With respect to deglutition, " says he, (p. 71,) " I shall 
make but few remarks. It is important for the preservation 
of health, that this process should be effected slowly. If 
food be swallowed rapidly, more will generally be taken into 
the stomach, before the sensation of hunger is allayed, than 
can be digested with ease. If due attention be paid to the 
primary step of mastication, we shall not be so likely to err 
in this latter one; and swallowing very rapidly produces ir- 



119 

regular contractions of the muscular fibres of the oesopha- 
gus and stomach ; disturbs the vermicular motions of the 
rugae, and interrupts the uniform actions of the gastric appa- 
ratus." 

On introducing food into the stomach of his subject, 
through the artificial aperture, the Doctor found that the 
organ would not receive it rapidly even in a liquid state. 

" If a few spoonfuls of soup or other liquid diet be put in, 
with a spoon or funnel, the rugae quickly close upon it, and 
gradually diffuse it through the gastric cavity, entirely 
excluding more, during this action. When a relaxation 
takes place, another quantity will be received in the same 
manner." 

The Doctor shows that digestion commences much sooner, 
and proceeds far more rapidly than has hitherto been gener- 
ally supposed by physiologists. Indolent inactivity is not so 
favorable to digestion as gentle exercise after a meal. Sleep 
after a meal decidedly retards digestion. Anger, fear, grie/, 
&,c. also retard and interrupt it. The presence of bile in 
the stomach retards the digestion of all other than oily or 
fatty substances, but is necessary for the digestion of these 
substances. 

" Oily substances are digested with great difficulty ; and 
the fat of all meats is converted into oil in the stomach, 
before it is digested." 

(( Bile is not essential to chymification. It is seldom 
found in the stomach except under peculiar circumstances. 
I have observed that, when the use of fat or oily food has 
been persevered in for some time, there is generally the pres- 
ence of bile in the gastric fluids." " Irritation of the pylo- 
ric extremity of the stomach, and external agitation by 
kneading with the hand, on the right side, over the region of 
the liver and pylorus, occasion a flow of bile into the sto- 
mach." 

" Magendie says, ' I believe that, in certain morbid condi- 
tions, the bile is not introduced into the stomach/ implying 
that, in a healthy state, it is always to be found there. There 
can hardly be a greater mistake. With the exceptions that I 
have mentioned, it is never found in the gastric cavity, in a 
state of health, and it is only in certain morbid conditions 
that it is found there." P. 95. 

" When much fat meat, or oily food has been used, the 
oil always maintains an ascendency in the gastric cavity. 
P. 142. 

" Bile is required, and necessarily called into the stomach, 
only for the purpose of facilitating the chymification of all 



120 

fatty and oily aliments." P. 264. (See also pages 127, 147, 
154, 171, 173, 178, 209, 213, from all which it is fully evi- 
dent, that fat meats and oily substances of every kind, are 
with great difficulty digested, and tend to irritate the stom- 
ach, derange its function and disease its tissues.) 

u Undigested portions of food in the stomach, produce all 
the phenomena of fever ; which should warn us of the dan- 
gers of all excesses, where that organ is concerned ; and also 
admonish us of the necessity of a perfect comminution of 
the articles of diet." P. 127. 

" Solid food is sooner disposed of by the stomach, than 
fluid ; and its nutritive principles are sooner carried into the 
circulation." P. 48. " Soup cannot be digested in the 
stomach, until it is formed into a harder mass, by the absorp- 
tion of the watery part." P. 157. u Fluids pass from the 
stomach very soon after they are received ; either by absorp- 
tion, or through the pylorus." P. 97. " Drinks, though 
not subject to digestion, enter into the circulation, and be- 
come important agents in the ultimate changes that are go- 
ing on in the tissues of the organism. Simple water is per- 
haps the only fluid that is called for by the wants of the econ- 
omy. The artificial drinks are probably all more or less in- 
jurious, some more so than others, but none can claim exemp' 
tionfrom the general charge. Even coffee and tea, the com- 
mon beverages of all classes of people, have a tendency to 
debilitate the digestive organs. Let any one who is in the 
habit of drinking either of those articles in a weak decoction, 
take two or three cups, made very strong, and he will soon 
be aware of their injurious tendency: And this is only an 
addition to the strength of the narcotic which he is in the 
constant habit of using. The whole class of alcoholic li- 
quors, whether simply fermented or distilled, may be consid- 
ered as narcotics, producing very little difference in their ul- 
timate effects on the system." P. 49. See also pages 189, 
191, 236, 537, 239. 

'•' That the introduction of narcotics into the stomach 
should destroy the appetite, proves only, that they have the 
same effect on that organ as they have on other parts of the 
body ; that they paralyze the nerves and render them incapa- 
ble of being the media of communication to their common 
centre." P. 55. 

" Wine and beer are both pernicious in their effects on 
the stomach." P. 50. 

" The gastric juice has no effect upon wine and spirits." 
P. 136. 

"Wine, spirits, water and other fluids, which conduce 



121 

nothing towards alimentation, are neither coagulated nor 
otherwise affected by the gastric juice. These fluids are not 
digested, and probably enter the circulatory system, without 
much change." P. 146. 

" Condiments, particularly those of the spicy kind, are 
non-essential to the process of digestion, in a healthy state 
of the system. They afford no nutrition. Though they may 
assist the action of a debilitated stomach for a time, their 
continual use never fails to produce an indirect debility of 
that organ. They affect it as alcohol or other stimulants do 
— the present relief afforded, is at the expense of future suf- 
feririg." P. 49. " It would seem then (from Experiments, 
pp. 241, 242,) that stimulating condiments, instead of being 
used with impunity, are actually prejudicial to the healthy 
stomach." P. 243. 

And if prejudicial to the healthy stomach, much more are 
they to the debilitated and the diseased stomach. As Dr. 
Beaumont justly observes, they may seem to afford a present 
relief, but it is always at the expense of increased debility 
and future suffering. 

li The diseased appearances of the stomach, which have 
frequently presented themselves, in the course of my experi- 
ments and examinations, have generally, but not always, suc- 
ceeded to some appreciable cause. Improper indulgence in 
eating and drinking, has been the most common precursor of 
these diseased conditions of the coats of the stomach. The 
free use of ardent spirit, wine, beer, or any other intoxicat- 
ing liquors, when continued for some days, has invariably 
produced these morbid changes. Eating voraciously, or to 
excess, — ^swallowing food coarsely masticated, or too fast, &c. 
&c. almost invariably produced similar effects, if repeated a 
number of times in close succession." — P. 239. 

"When these diseased appearances are considerable, and 
particularly, when there are corresponding symptoms of dis- 
ease, as dryness of the mouth, thirst, accelerated pulse, &c, 
no gastric juice can be extracted, not even on the application 
of alimentary stimulus. Drinks received are immediately 
absorbed, or otherwise disposed of: none remaining in the 
stomach ten minutes after being swallowed. Food taken in 
this condition of the stomach, remains undigested fortwent}'- 
four, or forty-eight hours, or more ; increasing the derange- 
ment of the whole alimentary canal, and aggravating the 
general symptoms of disease." P. 108, 

" These morbid changes and conditions, however, are seh 
clom indicated by any ordinary symptoms, or particular sen* 
gations descrihed or complained of; unless when in consider* 



122 

able excess, or when there have been corresponding symp- 
toms of a general affection of the system. They could not, 
in fact, in most cases, have been anticipated from any exter- 
nal symptoms ; and their existence was only ascertained by 
actual ocular demonstration." 

" It is interesting to observe to what extent the stomach, 
perhaps the most important organ of the animal system, may 
become diseased, without manifesting any external symptoms 
of such disease, or any evident signs of functional aberration. 
Vitiated secretions may also take place, and continue for 
sometime without affecting the health, in any sensible degree. 
Extensive active or chronic disease may exist in the mem- 
branous tissues of the stomach and bowels, more frequently 
than has been generally believed : — and it is possible that 
there are good grounds for the opinion advanced by a cele- 
brated teacher of medicine, that most febrile complaints are 
the effect of gastric and enteric inflammation. In the case 
of the subject of these experiments, inflammation certainly 
does exist, to a considerable extent, even in an apparent state 
of health, — greater than could have been believed to com- 
port with the due operations of the gastric functions." Pp. 
239,240. 

These pathological facts are of fearful importance, and 
should serve to break up the deep and universal delusion 
cherished by mankind, that so long as they are not sensible 
of any evil effects from their indulgences, they have the 
strongest evidence that those indulgences are not pernicious. 
Post mortem examinations have exhibited astonishingly ex- 
tensive disease pervading the stomach and bowels, and of 
the abdominal viscera generally, of a character which indi- 
cated a progress of many years ; and yet the subject was 
not, during life, in the least sensible of its existence. But 
the cause of all this is found in the effects which the artifi- 
cial habits of life have on the natural susceptibilities and sym- 
pathies of the system; destroying its original power to man- 
ifest the most delicate symptoms of the slightest functional 
aberrations or derangements. In a purely natural and healthy 
state of the vital susceptibilities of the nervous tissue, the 
slightest disturbing cause or morbid affection in the alimen- 
tary canal, reveals itself in appreciable and definite syrup* 
toms ; and yet, wonderful to be told ! that very state of health 
is, by most people, regarded as a state of disease? The man 
whose natural susceptibilities are so impaired that he can 
drink rum and consume tobacco enough, in a few minutes, 
to destroy the lives of three men whose healthy susceptibili* 
ties retain the purity and delicacy of undebauched nature, 



123 

is considered to be in a strong and healthy condition of body; 
while he who would be powerfully affected by small quanti- 
ties of these substances, would be considered as too delicate 
for active usefulness in life. The man who has so depraved 
the sensibilities of his stomach, and destroyed the healthy 
sympathies of his body that he can eat any thing and every 
thing without feeling any immediate inconvenience, is regard- 
ed as having a healthy and vigorous stomach ; while he whose 
stomach is so pure and truly healthy as to be able to detect 
and appreciate and manifest, the slightest disturbing cause, 
is considered as having a very weak, unhealthy and irritable 
stomach ! So do men in their delusion, mistake truth for er- 
ror and error for truth ! 

" In the present civilized state of society," says Dr. Beau- 
mont, " with the provocations of the culinary art and the in- 
centives of high seasoned food, brandy and wines, the temp- 
tations to excess in the indulgences of the table, are rather 
too strong to be resisted by poor human nature. It is not 
less the duty, however, of the watchmen on the walls to 
warn the city of its danger, however it may regard the pre- 
monition. Let them, at least, clear their own skirts from the 
stain of unfaithfulness, whatever may be the result." P. 63. 
" There is no subject of dietetic economy, about which 
people err so much, as that which relates to quantity. P. 
63. The quantity of aliment is probably of more import- 
ance than the quality, to insure health. The system requires 
much less than is generally supplied to it. The stomach dis- 
poses of a definite quantity. If more be taken than the ac- 
tual wants of the economy require, the residue remains in 
the stomach, and becomes a source of irritation, and produ- 
ces a consequent aberration of function, or passes into the 
lower bowels in an undigested state, and extends to them its 
deleterious influence. Dyspepsy is oftener the effect of over 
eating and over drinking than any cause" P. 51. 

Dr. Beaumont is very correct in the opinion that quantity 
is of the utmost importance to ensure health : and it is strict- 
ly true that quality is of equal importance to permanent 
health and longevity. A moderate quantity of even perni- 
cious food, to which the system has become accustomed, 
may be endured for many years, gradually sapping the con- 
stitution, and bringing on the final catastrophe, without ever 
manifesting any direct symptoms of its deleterious effects : 
while an excessive quantity of the most salutary food will 
soon either induce an unhealthy accumulation of adipose 
matter in the cellular tissue, and thus lead to obesity, and 
bring on disease and premature, and generally very sudden 



124 

death ; or cause a re-action upon the digestive organs, induc- 
ing very distressing, but generally less rapidly fatal diseases 
in those important viscera: or lead to congestion, debility 
and chronic or acute disease of particular parts, attended in 
some cases, with general febrile symptoms, and the co-ope- 
ration of other causes may superinduce or establish a fatal 
disease. Nevertheless, an excessive quantity of the best 
quality is incomparably better than an excessive quantity of 
pernicious food. But a moderate quantity of a good quality 
is the true rule of diet. 

On the whole, then, the valuable rules to be drawn from 
Dr. Beaumont's book are, 

1. Bulk — or food possessing a due proportion of nutritious 
and innutritious matter, is best calculated to preserve the 
permanent welfare of the digestive organs, and the general 
interests of the system. 

2. The food should be plainly and simply prepared, with 
no other seasoning than a little salt, or perhaps occasionally, 
a very little vinegar. 

3. Full and deliberate mastication or chewing, is of great 
importance. 

4. Swallowing the food slowly, or in small quantities and 
at short intervals, is very necessary. 

5. A quantity not exceeding the wants of the economy, is 
of prime importance to health. 

6. Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more easily 
digested and more salutary than soups, broths, &x. 

7. Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, 
are with difficulty digested, offensive to the stomach, and 
tend to derange the nutrient functions and induce disease. 

8. Pepper, spices and stimulating and heating condi- 
ments of every kind, retard digestion, and injure the stom- 
ach and through it the whole system. 

9. Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair 
digestion. 

10. Alcohol, whether in the form of distilled spirit, or of 
wine, beer, cider, or any other intoxicating liquors, retards 
and impairs digestion, debilitates the stomach, and, if perse- 
vered in for a short time, always induces a morbid state of 
that organ. 

11. Narcotics of every kind impair digestion, debilitate 
the stomach, and tend to disease. 

12. Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants 
of the economy; the artificial drinks are all, more or less 
injurious ; some more so than others ; but none can claim 
exemption from the general charge. 



125 

3. Gentle exercise after eating promotes digestion more 
than indolent inactivity or rest. Violent exercise with a 
full stomach, is injurious. 

14. Sleep, soon after eating heartily, retards digestion 
and leads to debility and derangement of the stomach. 

15. Anger, fear, grief and other strong emotions disturb 
digestion, and impair the functional powers of the stomach, 
and deteriorate the secretions generally. 

These rules are all of the most salutary character; they 
are founded on the permanent constitutional principles of 
human organic life ; and are equally valuable to every por- 
tion of the human race, in every part of the globe. 

Dr. Beaumont's idea that the power of long established 
habit, constitutes a necessity for the continuance of that 
habit, is a very common one, but nevertheless, it is a very 
erroneous one, entirely without any foundation in physiolo- 
gical truth. 

But with all the errors into which Dr. Beaumont has 
fallen from a want of physiological science, that science, 
is greatly indebted to him for the many valuable facts which 
his patient and persevering " Observations and Experiments" 
present to the truly scientific and discriminating mind : and 
we heartily thank him for the corroboration which he has 
afforded to our principles. 



11 



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Nursery. The Child's Dress ; Swathing the Body ; Form of the 
Dress; Material of Dress; Quantity of Dress 3 Caps ; Hats and 
Bonnets 5 Covering for the Feet 3 Pins 5 Remaining Wet; Remarks 
on the Dress of Boys ; on the Dress of Girls. Cleanliness. Batl> 
ing. Food ; Nursing— how often 5 Quantity of Food ; How long 
should Milk be the Only Food? On Feeding before Teething; From 
Teething to Weaning ; During the Process t)f Weaning ; Food 
subsequently to Weaning ; Remarks on Fruit ; Confectionary ; 
Pastry ; Crude, or Raw Substances. Drinks. Giving Medicine. 
Exercise — Rocking in the Cradle ; Carrying in the Arms ; Crawl- 
ing; Walking; Riding in Carriages; Riding on Horseback. 
Amusements. Crying. Laughing. Sleep — Hour for Repose; 
Place for Repose ; Purity of the Air ; The Bed ; The Covering ; 
Night Dresses ; Posture of the Body ; State of the Mind ; Quality 
of Sleep ; Quantity of Sleep. Early Rising. Hardening the 
Constitution. Society. Employments. Education of the Senses—^ 
Hearing — Seeing — Tasting and Smelling — Feeling. Abuses. 

IfJ 3 Copies bound in extra style for Presents. 



GEORGE W. LIGHT S PUBLICATIONS 



THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, 

OR 

THE HUMAN BODY. 

Second Edition — entirely re-written, enlarged and improved. 

FOR THE USE OF FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS. 

BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT. 

The great difficulty of making a subject which has hitherto been 
deemed dry and unintelligible, at once agreeable and interesting 
to the young mind, has led the author of this volume to describe 
the human body as a House. 

The work treats, first, on the Frame — consisting of the bones, 
muscles, tendons, &c. 5 secondly, of the Covering — consisting of 
the skin, hair, nails, eyes, ears, &c. ; and thirdly, of the Apart- 
ments and Furniture — by which are meant the interior cavities 
and organs. Nearly every anatomical and physiological tenn 
which appears in the work is so used or so explained, as to be at 
once clearly understood and apprehended. The subject is illus- 
trated by numerous engravings. 

The best recommendation of this work is, that it has been univep- 
sally approved of by the families and schools where it has been 
introduced, and by all medical men who have examined it. It has 
also received the entire approbation of the Press ; and is selling 
rapidly. 

The Philadelphia Commercial Gazette, in speaking of it says — "It it 
full of instruction and entertainment. It gives as plain and simple a 
description of the human body as it is possible to write." 

This work has also received the high commendation of Mrs. L. H. 
Sigoukney. 

J)^- By letters recently received from Europe, we learn that it is in the 
course of re-publication in London, and that the teachers in the famous 
institution of Count Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, in Switzerland, make it on« 
of the regular exercises of their pupils in French to translate it into thai 
language. 



ON HEALTH, DOMESTIC DUTIES, ETC. 



LIBRARY OF HEALTH, 

AND 

Teacher on the Human Constitution. 

Published Monthly — Price %\ a Year, in advance. 
DR. WM. A. ALCOTT, Editor. 

This is a Periodical work, originally called the " Moral Re- 
former, and Teacher on the Human Constitution." It is published 
in numbers of 32 pages each ? in neat book style for binding- into a 
volume, illustrated by engravings, and has now concluded the third 
year of its publication. The numbers of the past years are for 
sale, bound in neat volumes. 

This work discusses, in a familiar manner, all subjects connected 
with physical education and self-management. It treats on the 
connection of light, air, temperature, cleanliness, exer- 
cise, SLEEP, FOOD, DRINK, CLIMATE, the PASSIOiNS, AFFEC- 
TIONS, &C, with HEALTH, HAPPINESS and LONGEVITY. The 

editor takes the ground that a proper understanding of the consti- 
tutional laws of the human body, and of all its organs and func- 
tions, and a strict obedience thereto, are indispensable to the 
highest perfection and happiness — present and future — of every 
living human being. He deems this knowledge more and more 
indispensable in proportion to the progress of civilization and 
refinement. The work is pledged to support no system nor set of 
principles, any farther than that system and those principles can be 
proved to be based on the laws of Physiology, and revealed 
truth, and on human experience 5 and consequently its pages are 
always open to fair and temperate discussion. 

The work has recently been warmly approved of by George 
Combe, (author of the " Constitution of Man,") as well as a large 
number of distinguished men of this country, among whom are th« 
following : 

Dr. John C. Warren, Dr. S. B. Woodward, Rev. Dr. Humphrey, 
Rev. S. R. Hall, Rev. Hubbard Winslow, Rev. R. Anderson, Rev. 
Baron Stow, Rev. B. B. Wisner, R. H. Gillet, Esq., Rev. Wm. 
Hague, Roberts Vaux, Esq., Dr. John M. Keagy, Dr. R. D. Mu»- 
sey, Prof. E. A. Andrews, Rev. L. F. Clark, Rev. M. M. Carll, 
Rev. Dr. Fay, Dr. Sylvester Graham. 



GEORGE W. LIGHT'S PUBLICATIONS 



A TREATISE 

ON 

BREAD AND BREAD-MAKING. 

BY SYLVESTER GRAHAM. 

This treatise, by the celebrated lecturer on the Science of Human 
Life, recently published, has thus far met with a good sale, and will 
doubtless have a wide circulation. It meets with strong favor even 
among those who do not agree with Mr. G. in his general principles 
of diet, &c. It treats on the following subjects : 

History of Bread 5 Laws of Diet 5 Material of Bread 5 Proper- 
ties of Bread 5 Fermentation 5 Preparation of Bread 5 Who should 
make Bread 5 Varieties of Bread. 



LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN, 

ON 

CHASTITY. 

INTENDED ALSO FOR THE SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF 

PARENTS AND GUARDIANS. 

Second Edition — Enlarged and Improved, with Notes, 
BY SYLVESTER GRAHAM. 

The second edition of this important work is nearly double the 
size of the first, although the price is increased but a trifle. It is 
selling rapidly. It contains warm testimonials in its favor from 
Wm. C. Woodbridge, Editor of the Annals of Education, Dr. 
Woodward, Superintendent of the Massachusetts Lunatic Asy- 
lum, Dr. Alcott, and others. 



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